My point is this

and it's not particularly about Malky or NCFC at all. Football is a huge industry, yet it's run by clowns. Everywhere you look. Fortunes are wasted, year after year. Everywhere you look. If Norwich had spent our money wisely over the summer we would have finished mid-table. Even McNally, who must surely have signed off on that expenditure, admits that. The same goes for Cardiff. There were howls of anger from football's chattering classes over the departures of Moody and MacKay but as far as I am aware Tan's reasons remain sound - Andreas Cornelius. If there is anyone still at NCFC who had a hand in the RVW debacle - why?

We are not Everton or Villa. If we are going to become an established Premier League club we need to have a proper plan. And that may be all we need, because most of the teams we compete against will carry on in their same stupid way - desperately thrashing around responding to events, appointing managers and signing players based on little more than hunches.

The plan wouldn't look like this: Go up, go up again, go down, go up, build a stand. Hurrah! we are an established PL side. My worry is that actually that is all our plan ever amounted to, and similarly that the level of debate within the board surrounding the new manager is no more informed than the one on the Wrath.

The first priority must be to develop players that are capable of playing at the highest level. We have not managed this in years. I think I'm right in saying that the only NCFC youth products who are anywhere near the Premier League are Green, Shackell & Bellamy. We have the academy to change that, but we need to identify players early and then coach them and develop them correctly.

The second priority must be to alter the football management structure. Clubs have tried it before and I think it has occasionally paid off (Lawrence at the Gas?) but mostly it hasn't. What worries me now is that we will appoint in a manager and then appoint a Director of Football ( or whatever) to come in over the top. I can't see that being a success. We should have a Technical Director (or whatever) in place before we appoint the coaches.

Within that structure we need to have people who are good at specific functions. It may be that there are some individuals who are brilliant coaches and brilliant judges of players, but it does seem that they are thin on the ground. And in any event I don't think there is enough time for one individual to combine those roles. As far as I could tell McNally seems to be saying that the summer transfer disaster was all down to Hughton. The tactics, team selections and coaching certainly were down to him. In which case he was set up to fail.

I think we need to look at the board of directors too. Clearly the three big shareholders should be there, as should McNally. But Bowkett's specialism is turning round financial basket cases. And I have no idea what the point of Phillips and Fry is. It seems to me that there should be more football knowledge on the board.

I've watched NCFC for 45 years. We've never been better than a yo-yo club. I think we can change that if the business is run properly - because most of our rivals will never make that step.

Posted By: Winged Eel Creosote, May 18, 11:58:25