Paddy Davitt delivers his Hull verdict from Norwich’s latest sorry Championship home defeat.
1. Accountability
Ben Knapper. Get out of our club. Liam Manning. Your football is s***. Players. You are not fit to wear the shirt.
Fan protests before and after the game around the ground. Any chance Mark Attanasio can board another plane and head back in the days ahead?
That very public defence of the status quo in midweek from the principal owner already looks out of date following another miserable Carrow Road defeat to Hull City.
“We have to accept a lot of the criticism that is coming our way at this stage. We understand the mood, anger and frustration. Everyone internally is also feeling that at this moment, but our sole focus is on turning things around.” The words of Zoe Webber, City’s executive director, in the matchday programme.
Attanasio made it clear everyone from him downwards in the organisation is accountable.
For those who already wanted Manning, Knapper and Webber gone anything less from the very top was simply not going to cut it.
Knapper’s judgement was directly questioned by his boss around the business case for dispensing for Marcelino Nunez. Who opened his Ipswich goalscoring account later on Saturday at QPR with a free kick brace.
While the revelation from Attanasio they have looked outward to try and solve the endless issues around player injury recovery and rehab was another slap down for Knapper. The sporting director spoke in the summer about accepting there was major questions to answer, and an audit would seek to find the remedy.
The talk of relegation and a perilous slide to League One from Attanasio were alarming enough. The American insisted he would do everything in his power to avoid that calamity in the weeks and months ahead.
But if it is Knapper driving that January window you can hardly blame those who have already made their mind up that is an unpalatable prospect.
How long have you got to dig into the Carrow Road revamp delivery fiasco? Now ‘paused’ pending the proper, meaningful engagement that was overlooked by this executive committee. It is a toxic mess.
It feels rudderless, and Attanasio’s admission he was not seeking external counsel only served to underline the gravity of the challenge facing this football club.
Those above Manning feeling the heat needed a win and a performance on the shop floor against the Tigers. They got more of the sorry same.
2. Abrupt exit
‘Poor’ was Manning’s own assessment of his actions shortly after the final whistle of a seventh straight home loss on his watch as Norwich City head coach.
The beleaguered boss turned and headed for the tunnel rather than accompany his players and support staff on a lap that has now become a regular chance for home fans to show their disapproval.
But the manner of this defeat, and the ferocity of the terrace verdict directed at Manning and his methods, clearly stung. The City chief issued his own post-match apology for his actions, and attributed it to the deep frustration he shares with those same supporters he once sat amongst for a spell in his youth.
Manning is not stupid. He understands the optics are terrible and he has already lost a large constituency of the City fan base with the soporific brand of football he tried to engineer league results.
Once again he made changes to personnel to try and find a winning formula but it was the same old, same old. Incremental progress in the first half that lacked any clinical edge, or sustained threat in open play.
Then another soft concession in that arc from half-time to the hour mark. A divisional high seventh goal shipped immediately following the interval this season. That is on Manning directly.
Hull stayed up on goal difference last season. Sergej Jakirovic was appointed after he was unveiled as Johannes Hoff Thorup’s replacement. He had the Tigers’ eighth at kick-off in Norfolk.
Manning is not solely to blame for what feels a broken club at present. But he is in the eye of the storm.
He admitted in the same post-match media briefing that discussions on the future are inevitable from here. Hard to see any route where he remains part of that.
3. New balls, please
That social media-fuelled protest movement around calls to fling tennis balls onto the Carrow Road pitch – to demonstrate the rising sense of fury among the fan base – numbered five from the direction of the River End.
The game was already paused just past the 19th minute mark prior to a Norwich free kick. It was a token gesture that led to mocking chants from the travelling support for its limited scale. Anecdotal reports suggested it was entirely members of the same family.
Allied to the limited numbers who vented prior to the game behind the City Stand it felt like Attanasio’s midweek media call had sucked the oxygen out of a tangible mood of restlessness.
No point calling for change, be it from the dugout to the directors’ box, when the individual with the power had already raised his thumb skyward.
But the genie is out of the bottle now. Those numbers had swelled post-match in the same location, after plenty stayed inside Carrow Road to vent their fury from the point Darko Gyabi sealed Hull’s win.
There was also a group who opted to try and block the South Stand car park exit after the game; presumably to try and intercept those they hold directly accountable.
Knapper was berated before, during and after another defeat. Manning got the same barbs regarding his style of football that were previously reserved in these parts for both Dean Smith and David Wagner. That is where this has now receded too. Division and rancour.
4. Thrown in the towel
Manning had a simple response when questioned if there is a mentality issue in this squad? Yes.
If you go back to the second half implosion at Carrow Road against Wrexham during this prolonged rot Manning appeared to have had enough, and challenged some of those he felt were ‘hiding’ to step forward.
But more went missing on duty against the Tigers. After a first half of relative control another embarrassing concession. A clearing header allowed to bounce into Harry Darling’s channel, in an echo of last weekend’s opening goal conceded against Swansea, for Joe Gelhardt to outstrip the centre back.
Darling has gone from a pedigree performer in Norwich’s early Championship forays to a player bereft of confidence. For him, read the entire squad. Kenny McLean looks the only one able to withstand the adverse currents.
Manning told his players prior to this game, ‘When you are on the ropes, you need to come out swinging.’ But too many appear to have already thrown in the towel.
If Manning limps on he will have the same collection of fragile footballers to head to Sheffield Wednesday in a basement battle.
Does anyone seriously think when adversity hits at Hillsborough, in the face of a fan base who feel they have finally got their club back with the removal of the unpopular Dejphon Chansiri, this Norwich collective will have the will to resist?
One look at the Championship standings is all you need to realise these are desperate times. That will be graphically brought into sharp focus if they fold yet again at the Owls.
