The Greatest Modern Canaries XI - The Best Norwich City XI (of the last 30 years)

We held a vote on Twitter and after 1211 votes the Norwich City fans voted for the following team:

GK: BRYAN GUNN (58%)
He beat Rob Green (14%), Fraser Forster (16%) and John Ruddy (12%) to the gloves.

RB: IAN CULVERHOUSE (43%)
He denied Russell Martin (39%), Steen Nedergaard (11%) and Marc Edworthy (7%) to the role.

LB: ADAM DRURY (58%)
He stopped Mark Bowen (34%) and Martin Olsson (8%).

CB: MALKY MACKAY (49%)

CB: CRAIG FLEMING (29%)
They were ahead of Jon Newsome (15%) and John Polston (8%)

RW: DARREN EADIE (40%)
(Okay so yeah, the left side was looking a little congested and Eadie did play on the right sometimes)
He flew past Ruel Fox (39%), Nathan Redmond (13%) and Robert Snodgrass (7%).

LW: DARREN HUCKERBY (95%)
He left Keith O'Neill (3%), Raymond DeWaard (2%) and Clint Easton (0%) for dead.

CM: JEREMY GOSS (28%)

CM: IAN CROOK (49%)
They beat Jonny Howson (16%) and Gary Holt (7%) to the 2 positions.

ST: GRANT HOLT (71%)
We've had a LOT of great strikers but big Grant beat Iwan Roberts (8%), Chris Sutton (15%) and Dean Ashton (6%).

ST: CRAIG BELLAMY (41%)
Little bit of a surprise but he beat Robert Fleck (37%), Simeon Jackson (17%) and Paul McVeigh (5%).

MANAGER: PAUL LAMBERT (66%)
He beat Mike Walker (20%), Dave Stringer (11%) and Nigel Worthington (3%).

Not a bad team!

 

Of course there were some issues: I left Wes Hoolahan out because at the time he was a current player but somehow Russell Martin snuck in? There were other notable omissions. Where was Bradley Johnson, Dale Gordon, Spencer Prior, Matt Jackson, Gary Doherty(?), Dion Dublin, Darren Kenton, Efan Ekoku, Ian Butterworth, Andy Townsend...even Neil Adams..but ultimately it's just a bit of fun, maybe next time though!

Quick Debrief

It's been a little while since I ventured any thoughts on my Norwich City. There's no exciting reasons behind that, it's certainly not through a lack of discussion points regarding the club. Since I last blogged we've had a season of Premiership football in which we drifted towards a fairly inevitable relegation. We had a strong enough team to stay up, enough of that squad are playing Premiership football with other teams now to suggest that it wasn't a quality issue. Clubs are reflections of their managers and we were a naïve club without a clear footballing identity. Success towards the bottom of the league is built on learning the lessons of a defeat and putting the result behind you quickly, but we'd have sucker punch results like the Liverpool one or the Newcastle one that would see us suffer hangovers for too many games afterwards.

The same happened last year, we were doing brilliantly in the league despite not playing all that well and then Newcastle opened up our old "inability to hold on for a result" wound and we started to free-fall. In his post-match press conference Alex Neil would name individuals who he felt had let him down which is never a healthy thing for a manager to do. A good team win and lose as one. Even Alex Neil seemed genuinely surprised to still be employed towards the end of his tenure. Then Alan Irvine came in and settled things down. Think about it, at the start of that season we had Robbie Brady, Alex Pritchard, Josh Murphy, Jacob Murphy, Wes Hoolahan and James Maddison....HOW did Neil fail to get us promoted?

Anyway, that's the past dealt with, onto now:

I really like Daniel Farke. I think he seems like a very intelligent man who speaks better in his second language than some managers do in their first language. He is genuinely easier to understand than Peter Grant, admit it. I loved the way he handled the embarrassing Nelson shirt celebration issue. I would like him to have been able to have an experienced Championship coach amongst his coaching staff to be able to call on. Someone who could have quietly suggested 2 defensive-minded midfielders might help against Millwall.  He's having to learn an awful lot about the division awfully fast. I think he's great though, I also bloody love the FarkeLife chant. Best crowd song EVER. Kudos goes to the various fan groups making a concerted effort to improve the vocal support on the terraces this year. It's having a huge effect. Although I have always dreamt that one day we'll sing Yellow Submarine by The Beatles..."WE ALL FOLLOW THE YELLA AND THE GREEN, THE YELLA AND THE GREEN, THE YELLA AND THE GREEN" Imagine the Barclay bouncing along to that on a matchday. Someone make that happen.

SO here are some more random unconnected thoughts:

Stuart Webber is a very impressive leader on the footballing side and Steve Stone seems to be doing a brilliant job of keeping the finances manageable.

Russell Martin is an international, our club captain and our second longest serving player behind Wes, he's helped get us promoted 3 times, he deserves so much better than the pathetic booing from some "supporters". Anyway...

I didn't really get the shock regarding our new shirt sponsors. We were sponsored by Fosters Lager not so long ago and we play in the SkyBet Championship...I can't say I was hypnotized into using Aviva, Flybe, Norwich & Peterborough Building Society or Lotus just because they sponsored us. Although Lotus would have been okay actually.

I'm cautiously optimistic about the season, I think it would be incredible if we were to finish in the top two, but the top six should be achievable with the talent we have in our squad.