Norwich City: The laughing stock of the football league!

Bryan Gunn was sacked as manager of Norwich City football club today. Just one league game into the season, the Norwich board have decided to disgracefully axe the club legend.With huge debts, practically a new team of players and no manager it is not a great time to be a Norwich City fan.

Where on earth has it all gone wrong for Norwich City? Fifteen years ago ‘the canaries’ were flying high in Europe, smashing Bayern Munich along the way and still the only British club to have beaten Bayern in Munich.

Today Norwich are languishing in the third tier of English football, their first game of this season was a humiliating 7-1 defeat at home to of all clubs Colchester. With the summer transfer window drawing to a close and virtually no transfer funds, even a new manager will not be able to improve or transform his squad.

How can you appoint a manager like Gunn who had no previous experience and then give him the job personally after getting the club relegated? And furthermore how can you appoint a manager and then sack him after one league game at the start of the season? It is crazy.

But Norwich fans will not be surprised, the club has been a shambles for years. Nothing makes sense about the way the board approaches running the club, there have been some horrific manager choices recently including serial failure Glen Roeder and unexperienced former player Peter Grant, all with disasterous consequences ultimately ending in relegation last season.

So to the sacking of Gunn. Once he had been given the job despite fans uproar and huge disagreement, you would expect the board to give him a chance. The 7-1 loss on Saturday was a sham but the fact is it was the first game of the season, there are bound to be a few rusty players and it is tough for a manager to know his best eleven on the first day given the amount of changes there were in the squad. Also, Gunn turned it around on Tuesday night by changing a few players, with Norwich acheiving a very respectable 4-0 away win at Yeovil. Over at the other side of the country Yeovil is certainly not an easy place to win at. Given City’s dreadful cup record it was a fantastic result for the club. So the manager has lost his job on the back of a 4-0 win, how ironic it is then that he was given the job after a 4-0 win earlier in the year.

Hardly surprising though given how poorly the club is run. The owner is a TV chef who is better known for her drunken half time ‘let’s be ‘avin ya’ rants than her boardroom knowledge. Perhaps it really is time for Delia Smith to go before she causes anymore damage, surely it could not get any worse. Yes, Delia has put a lot of money into the club but this does not justify some dreadful decisions and playing in the third tier of English football. Aside from Leeds United, Norwich City are the biggest club in League One and should on this merit run away with it this season. Not many fans believe that is likely to happen.

The only possible salvation would be a big takeover and a decent investment of cash but as always a lot of talk about such things has merely been rubbish in recent months. Another way the club may restore some dignity is if they appoint a great manager to take the reigns and shake up the club, but who in their right mind will want this job now. Anyone who is worthy of a good manager job would not take it and that just leaves Norwich City with the scraps and unsuccessful managers to choose from.

Possible candidates to take over are current caretaker Ian Butterworth, who will be blighted by being part of the Gunn regime, Mark Robins, a former player who has had some success in managing at this level, and the man most City fans would love to have in charge, Aidy Bothroyd. Bothroyd a former academy boss has the skill and the nous to lead a promotion charge but even if he gets the job he will not be able to bring in many players and is pretty much stuck with the current untested City squad.

This is all very worrying for Norwich City and rather than harbouring promotion ambitions, most fans have already given up hope, mid-table may be the best city can get this season, the board needs to rectify this situation quickly or they will have a City riot on their hands.

Premier League Weekend Afterthought

The story of the weekend has to be Arsenal’s surprising win at Stamford Bridge. Chelsea who had gone over four years without a Premier League home defeat lost their second home game in recent weeks under dramatic circumstances. Arsenal, however, started the match very shakily and did not look comfortable as Chelsea seemingly dominated the possession and dictated the pace of the match. This was compounded by Djorou who put into his own net to give Chelsea a 1-0 half time lead.

Chelsea deserved their lead and looked good for it until a terrible referreeing decision allowed Arsenal to level midway through the second half. Denilson’s flick fell to Van Persie, who was visably a yard or two offside, no flag was raised and Van Persie slotted home.

A shell shocked Chelsea were outraged by the assistant referees mistake and were further made to pay when a sluggish Chelsea defence failed to clear allowing for Van Persie to turn on the ball and fire home the winner past a helpless Petr Cech a couple of minutes later. Chelsea never looked like scoring and again failed to come from a goal behind against strong opposition.

The Blues can look back on the match as an unlucky defeat but in truth Chelsea did not have enough spark at the Bridge to deserve anything from the match.

Scolari was surprisingly critical of the refereeing after the game. The Brazilian’s cool, calm and colleted reputation is quickly disappearing. The pressure may be getting to Big Phil, Chelsea are not looking they force they did at the start of the season. As the injury list grows and following the annoucement that Chelsea will not be buying players in January it is difficult to see how the home forn will be turned around.

As for Arsenal this result may have saved their season. They now are within 8 points of the top of the league and although it will be an uphill struggle the league title can still be theirs. Arsenal still lack a clear cutting edge but this result is sure to boost their confidence. Hopefully they will spend in January as the board have made it clear they have the funds to. Chelsea have now played all of the other three so called ‘big four’ at home this season and have only taken one point from those games not exactly title winning form.

Perhaps the fiercest derby in English Football went the way of Manchester United this weekend. United dominated the match and were good value for their win. Manchester City could not find the magic of last season to oust their rivals. Rooney scored a rebound tap in to seal the win for the Red Devils.

All did not end well for United, Cristiano Ronaldo was sent off for a needless handball late in the second half. The win has meant United have closed the gap significantly at the top and are starting to look like the team of last season again. City are now hovering dangerously close to the relegation zone. People at City will be starting to wonder how much longer their ridiculously rich owners will stand for the poor league position.

Liverpool claimed top spot despite failing to capitalise on Chelsea’s loss and could only draw in a drab match at home to West Ham. The Reds were booed off at full time and the Anfield crowd were less than impressed with another goaless home draw against weaker opposition.

It was the same result at Villa Park as a gutsy Fulham earned a good point. Villa missed out on the chance to consolidate their position in the top four and have now fallen to fifth. The league has tightened even more this week and no one at the top is taking control over their rivals.

Towards the foot of the table things are so close that a win can take some teams up six or seven places.

West Brom lost again despite leading away to Wigan and look like the real certainties to go down at the moment.

The other team on a downward spiral are Sunderland, hammered at home 4-1 by Bolton of all teams. An embarressing result and it looks as though Roy Keane has become disillusioned with life in the North-East. He will not sign a new contract and has admitted he may leave the club which is hardly reassuring to the players and fans. It is difficult to see how they can turn their fortunes around under such a fickle manager. Maybe Keane should just leave now so that the club can appoint a new manager and raise the spirits on the club before it is too late.

There were also good wins for Everton away at Spurs and Portsmouth at home to Blackburn. Stoke and Hull managed a draw as did Middlesborough and Newcastle.

1	Liverpool	15	13	34
2	Chelsea	15	27	33
3	Man Utd	14	16	28
4	Arsenal	15	8	26
5	Aston Villa	15	6	25
6	Hull	15	-2	23
7	Everton	15	-2	22
8	Portsmouth	15	-4	22
9	Bolton	15	1	20
10	Fulham	14	1	19
11	Wigan	15	-1	19
12	Middlesbrough	15	-6	19
13	West Ham	15	-5	18
14	Stoke	15	-10	18
15	Man City	15	6	17
16	Tottenham	15	-4	15
17	Newcastle	15	-5	15
18	Sunderland	15	-11	15
19	Blackburn	15	-12	13
20	West Brom	15	-16	11