Something like this has been on the cards for some time and it won't be the end of it

This sort of thing has been coming for ages hasn't it. There they were having their spring clean with the likes of Skipper, O'Hara, Cullen and others leaving for pastures new and now they're off too. Doesn't exactly poijt to a happy ship sailing in the right direction.

I don't buy this sub-prime excuse, they have only been on board for just over a year, it was already happening then and they must have been worried then if they were at all. You don't get where they got without looking down the telescope a little bit further.

Looks more like a fall out, which the lack of any joint coherent statement suggests, but whatever the significance of them going now, if indeed there is any at all, it is ironic that the ship is lurching from side to side when we finally seem to have a good manager who knows what he's doing. Luckily, I can only see West Brom being a team who would sack their manager and go for a Roeder: Hull and Stoke are too grateful to theirs.

The massive problem is expectation though, I must admit to being a bit sick and tired of football - the sheer amount of money in it that we don't have makes it almost impossible to compete - and if we do by some miracle ever get into the prem in our lifetime the days where we could dream of challenging for a title are so long gone it's actually sad. So you have fun in the process of going up and then what? Get spanked at Chelsea for ?45. Lose 5-0 at home to flipping Wigan. There's never a good time to go down but we really picked it.

It's becoming increasingly difficult to understand as well: so many of the Prem transfers were players I imagine their own supporters have never even heard of, let alone seen play. And it means the soul of your club is lost: there is nothing so addictive as seeing one of your own come through the ranks and succeed. But the likes of Ched Evans can play as well as they like but in the end the owners of the club are looking for the glory and the headlines and the big player transfers: his dreams are now shot too.

It seems pretty clear to me that Delia and MWJ are as sick of the whole thing as the general person in the street, as their constant references to little Norwich testify, the only problem being that a) they have a lot of money tied up in the club and believe they deserve a fair price for it (which they do) and b) they simply cannot match the expectations of what has become a sold-out stadium c) they genuinely believe in norwich city and the way we go about things (which I do too) and therefore are not willing just to piss that all away.

And the third point there is key: without clubs like ours, football is doomed in a way. Manchester City fans might not think it at the moment, but when they're paying 100 per cent more for their season tickets, when their owners get bored, when it all goes tits up as it inevitably will, they'll want their club back. But it'll be too late.

Posted By: ChalkHillVeryBitter, Sep 2, 14:36:36