Over two months on and nothing has changed

Just looked at my old sent emails and found this that I sent to Neil Doncaster on the 24th November. I think its time I slightly changed it and let my feelings known to him again.

Dear Neil,
I feel it is time to write to you to ask some
questions about the direction the club is going in and
ask exactly what is going on behind the scenes. I am a
season ticket holder at Norwich and have been for many
years, I attend the majority of away games and have to
say I have never felt so dejected about the state of
our club as at present. I am also a share holder.
Firstly, I will start with the AGM which was
recently held. Unfortunately I was not able to attend
this meeting due to work commitments in London but had
several trusted friends attend and report back to me.
They unanimously believed that the AGM was staged by
the club, by this I mean when the AGM was opened to
the floor for questions that the board had primed
several people to support Nigel Worthington and the
club.

Please can you tell me what scouting procedure
Nigel Worthington and the club have in place? As I am
very concerned by the players that Nigel Worthington
continues to sign and whether we are having these
players scouted before we sign them. Here is a list of
all Nigel Worthington's signings since he took charge
of the club:

Zema Abbey- December 2000. ?300,000
Paul Heckinbottom
Danny Bloomfield- January 2001. Free
Adam Drury- March 2001. ?500,000
Gary Holt- March 2001. ?100,000
Paul Peschisolido- March 2001. Loan
Paul Crichton- June 2001. ?150,000
Clint Easton- June 2001. ?100,000
Mark Rivers- June 2001. ?500,000
Neil Emblen- July 2001. ?500,000
Marc Libbra- August 2001. Free
David Nielsen- December 2001. Loan then ?200,000
Andy Roberts- January 2002- Loan
Trevor Benjamin- February 2002. Loan
Nicky Southall- September 2002. Loan
Keith Briggs- January 2003. ?65,000
David Healy- February 2003. Loan
Leigh Bromby- February 2003. Loan
Jim Brennan- July 2003. Free
Damien Francis- July 2003. ?260,000
Marc Edworthy- August 2003. Free
Elvis Hammons- August 2003. Loan
Peter Crouch- September 2003. Loan
Kevin Harper- September 2003. Loan
Darren Huckerby- September 2003. Loan then ?750,000
Leon McKenzie- December 2003. ?350,000
Mathias Svensson- December 2003. ?75,000
Kevin Cooper- March 2004. Loan
David Bentley- June 2004. Loan
Paul Gallacher- June 2004. Free
Youssef Safri- June 2004. ?500,000
Thomas Helveg- July 2004. Free
Simon Charlton- July 2004. ?250,000
Darren Ward- August 2004. ?250,000
Gary Doherty- August 2004. ?600,000
Mathias Jonson- August 2004. ?600,000
Dean Ashton- January 2005. ?3M
Graham Stuart- January 2005. Free
Mattieu Louis Jean- June 2005. Part ex (free)
Jason Jarrett- June 2005. Free
Jurgen Colin- July 2005. ?263,000
Andy Hughes- July 2005. ?500,000
Peter Thorne- July 2005. Free
Dean Marney- August 2005. Loan
Kevin Lisbie- September 2005. Loan
Calum Davenport- September 2005. Loan
Dickson Etuhu- November 2005. Loan
David Wright- November 2005. Loan
Carl Robinson- November 2005. Loan (presumably)

When you look in detail at this list you realise what
a poor judge of a player Mr Worthington and his team
of scouts are. Out of the 32 permanent signings above
only 8 can be counted as successes at Norwich City.
They are the following:

Adam Dury
Gary Holt
Damian Francis
Marc Edworthy
Darren Huckerby
Leon Mckenzie
Youssef Safri
Dean Ashton

Out of the 17 loan players he has signed excluding
Etuhu, Wright and Robinson only the following have
been success stories:

Calum Davenport
Kevin Cooper
Kevin Harper
Peter Crouch

I think you will find it hard to find any Norwich fan
who will argue that any other players, other than the
ones in the two lists above, that Nigel has brought to
the club have been complete success stories.

Of the 32 players brought on Permanent transfers they
following have either been released or had their
contracts terminated:

Zema Abbey
Danny Bloomfield
Paul Crichton
Clint Easton
Mark Rivers
Neil Emblem
Marc Libbra
Keith Briggs
Marc Edworthy
Graham Stuart
Paul Heckinbottom

9/32 players Nigel has brought in he has decided are
not good enough and have been released some such as
Marc Libbra, Mark Rivers at considerable cost to the
club as we have had to reach agreements with the
player to terminate contracts.

It is clear to see for anyone not wearing Nigel
Worthington tinted glasses that he has wasted vast
sums of money in the transfer market and that
something is seriously going wrong with the
recruitment of players.

This summer has to be the worst summer yet as far as
terrible buys by Nigel. We signed two right backs in
Louis Jean and Colin, neither of whom are anywhere
near the same quality of player as Marc Edworthy. Yet
when both Colin and Louis Jean were fit Nigel decided
to play Craig Fleming at right back. This is a clear
admission by him that he has signed two very poor
players.

Also this summer we signed Andy Hughes. Although
Hughes can not be faulted for effort it is clearly
obvious that he has very little footballing ability.
If we are realistic in our ambitions to rejoin the top
flight of English football we should not be signing
players with no real footballing talent. Jason Koumas
was available in the summer and I know who I would
prefer playing in midfield.

The next signing we made was Peter Thorne aged 32.
This signing amazed me as only a few weeks before we
had sold Matty Svensson as at aged 31 we would not
give him an extra year on his contract. How come we
completely contradicted this and gave Thorne, 32, a
two year contract?

The worst signing of the summer must have to be Jason
Jarrett, who I see has been loaned out to Plymouth
today. Mr Worthington had already had this player
under his control at Blackpool so should have know all
about his qualities or lack of them. Obviously not, as
when Safri and Hughes have been injured we have opted
for two left backs in centre midfield in Jim Brennan
and Simon Charlton or academy player Rossi Jarvis.
This is yet another admission by the manger that he
signed more deadwood, no doubt on large wages.

Nigel Worthington has managed to build a completely
unbalanced squad of players. We have not had an out
and out right winger at the club since Kevin Cooper
and Kevin Harper came on loan two seasons ago. He has
continued to put square pegs in round holes. David
Bentley occupied the right wing most of last season
yet he is really a forward who players off a main
striker. This season we signed Dean Marney on loan and
both Marney and Worthington admitted that his
preferred position is centre midfield. Currently we
have Andy Hughes wide right but he is a centre
midfielder. Despite the obvious need to sign a right
winger Nigel has signed two more centre midfielders
(Etuhu and Robinson) and another right back on loan
(Wright). It seems Nigel is completely oblivious to
the fact that Dean Ashton needs crosses coming into
the box for him to score. At Crewe Ashton thrived on
crosses from the wings from players such as Kenny
Lunt.

I have along with many others Norwich fans become more
and more resigned to the fact that Nigel and his
coaching staff are tactically inept. We have become a
long ball team, lumping long aimless balls upfield. We
seem completely void of ideas and there is no movement
off the ball. In the 5 years that Nigel has been
manager I think I can count the number of decent
corners we have taken on one hand. I do not know if we
practice these on the training ground but we
continually seem to hit the first defender at the near
post or smash the ball far to far into touch the other
side.
I have also looked at the stats with regards to off
sides and we seem to be caught off side more than any
other team. Surely we should be working on this on the
training ground. What exactly does go on at Colney?

The vast majority of Norwich fans are sick to death of
hearing Nigel trying to pull the wool over our eyes at
after match press conferences. He continually says the
same old rubbish like ?the work rate was good", "we
passed the ball well", "we need to go back to basics"
and worst of all "we need to stick together".
Who does he think he is kidding? He maybe able to fool
the board but he is not fooling the fans.

Delia and Michael have been brilliant for the club and
had built a real feeling of trust from the supporters.
However the current situation we find ourselves in is
alienating the fans from the board very quickly. The
continued 'bury their head in the sand' approach being
taken by the board is killing all the good that has
been done over the years that Delia and Michael have
been in charge. It is clearly obvious that Nigel
Worthington has lost the dressing room, the players
are not motivated, the squad is full of dead wood and
is completely unbalanced and that the tactics are all
wrong. The board need to act now before it is too
late.

If the board do not take the correct decision to sack
Nigel Worthington now we are in big trouble. If we let
this debacle drag on Nigel will waste more money on
poor players in January and in the worst case scenario
we could end up like Notts Forest.

Support is already beginning to wane and attendances
both home and away will drop markedly unless action is
taken. The away attendance at Coventry on Saturday is
only so high due to the fact that it is a new stadium
that nobody has been to before.

Please can you pass this email on to Delia and Michael
and please do not hesitate to contact me with regards
to any points that I have made.

Yours

Posted By: bringbackeaston, Feb 1, 19:46:22