Doncaster

In relation to Etuhu I can't understand why he doesn't defend himself more robustly instead of this drivel about Redknapp: getting 3 times as much as we paid for a player who we signed 18 months ago and who has played well in about 1 in every 5 of his appearances is bloody good business - release clause or not. Yes, if Desmond had played at the top of his game for, say, 40 games this season we'd have pissed all over this league. But what actually were the chances of that? He never managed it anywhere else in his career.

Otherwise I think Doncaster's performance should be as subject to question as any other employee's - be it Worthington, or Grant, or Hughes etc etc. Specifically I do not believe that the club's cashflow position should have been allowed to deteriorate to the extent it had by January 2006. I questioned Doncaster about this the other afternoon, and he simply would not answer - which suggests to me that there is not a satisfactory account of the way the finances were handled in the period June to December 2005 to be had.

In terms of contracts I have yet to see anything that has convinced me that the release clause for Earnshaw was pitched right, and I also find it worrying that the previous manager's contract meant that no matter how poorly he performed it would cost us £600,000 to remove him which meant, effectively, he was unsackable during the Autumn of 2005.

As far as transfers go I think that the club's policy of giving the manager a budget and just letting him get on with it is wrong. Ferguson has always had to make a case for every player he has signed for Manchester - I don't think it is unreasonable for the same to happen at Norwich. This can happen without the board questioning the manager's judgement of individual players. Take two failed transfers from the Summer of 2005:
Jarrett: here was a player filling a gap we had with the impending departure of Francis, and with whom the manager had previously worked. I can't see any grounds for the board to veto that.
Hughes: a month later we signed a player who the manager regarded as being so similar to Jarrett that they could not play in the same side. Fair enough if we had a Chelsea-style budget - but in fact the budget was very cramped. I can't see any justification for the board to allow it. No judgement on the abilities of the players concerned - but having signed one "Francis" we should not have signed another.

Posted By: Citizen Creosote, Jul 22, 17:17:30