Shabby ending for Neil

So, the deed is done. Alex Neil is gone. The question is, why now? To allow him to go ahead with his Friday press conference and talk about his thoughts ahead of a game it had clearly been decided he would not oversee, is odd. Insensitive, some might say. Few would have seen that in the morning tea-leaves, including Neil himself, especially given the events of the past fortnight.

But then this is Norwich City, a club that prides itself in doing different, that continues to hold to values which football threw on the fire long ago. Like continuing to back a manager who at any other club in the known world would have been relieved of their duties. “My dream is to have a manager for 10 years”, Delia Smith told Times journalist Henry Winter back in November. Such sentiment, however laudable, has no place in the modern game, and yet time and again it has informed key board decisions.

Neil deserved better than today’s shabby ending and he would have got it if they had pulled the plug months ago. We will all have our own view on when that should have been. Some felt the defeat to Huddersfield just before Christmas should have been the turning point and a chance to let someone else take charge before the transfer window opened. A poor home result is always more damaging for a manager than an away one, after all. For others, the total no-show at Rotherham, a side then six points adrift at the bottom of the table should have proved too much for the board to stomach. How could we mount a promotion charge if we couldn’t get so much as a point there, fans were left to ponder?

Then there was the debacle at Burton Albion and the draw with one of the most impotent Ipswich teams in living memory, only Jacob Murphy’s equaliser preventing the post-match atmosphere outside Carrow Road from turning toxic. All of which meant Sheffield Wednesday was a game of huge importance, especially when City had been unable to mix it with all other top-six sides. In the event, the board and long-suffering travelling fans witnessed City pants not so much being pulled down as entirely removed. Yet on Monday morning Neil was still very much in charge and preparing for the trip to Bristol City, where his charges would again come up short.

So why was he allowed to drag us to a point where all hope of a play-off place had died? The second season ticket deadline- by pure coincidence – is today (Saturday 10 March) and while the owners’ patent desire was to cling on to their man, a sharp drop in season ticket sales will have caused furrowed brows, even in their Ivory Tower. Relegation followed by another dogs’ dinner of a season has caused even some stalwart fans not to renew and with a home game today, Neil has been sacrificed in the hope it will persuade them to ‘stay part of the family’.

Ultimately, the ham-fisted timing proves this is a board that never learns from its mistakes. Worthington was kept well beyond his sell-by date because Delia and Michael had allowed him and his wife to become too close to them, leading to steeet protests and a poisonous finale at Carrow Road.Gunn should have been sacked in the summer after the team tanked and slid into the third-tier of English football. He wasn’t and the ghastly events of that opening game against Colchester unfolded. They clung on to Houghton, but then jettisoned him with five games left when it was all too late. This time, in a season when it was crucial we made the most of the strong squad still available post-relegation, heart has again ruled head and valuable fixtures have come and gone.

Neil’s achievements must not be forgotten. He did what few City managers have done by winning a big occasion and the confidence with which we despatched Middlesbrough at Wembley will live long in the memory. All managers have a shelf-life and after relegation and a deeply uninspiring Championship season it was clear Neil had reached his. But the decision-making off the pitch, as well as on it, demonstrates the club’s problems extend far beyond the dugout.

The case for a defence

A defensive blunder led to the first goal. Not only that but it was committed, in the view of the manager, in a “stupid area”, and from our own throw-in, if you don’t mind. The culprit was Timm Klose and he was full of apologies in the dressing room at half-time. Such individual lapses can’t be legislated for and Alex Neil will have been as frustrated as the fans watching and listening in. Sadly, gaffes have been a feature of this season so far and the defensive jitteriness that so carelessly handed three points to Burton is threatening to write off any chance we have of a top-six finale.

The key to mistakes is you learn from them. And in that respect, the manager and players have singularly failed. It was just six minutes before Ruddy was picking the ball out of the net at Brighton, seven at Rotherham and five at home to Huddersfield. People were still buying pies and making their way to their seats when Newcastle drew first blood after, ahem, 23 seconds. Early lapses of concentration and the sound of battle plans being ripped up in the dugout are nothing new.

On the road, our focus seems to go completely. Only Forest and Rotherham have now conceded more league goals away from home this season and the reason we are seventh and even talking about the play-offs is that we are the second-highest scoring team, behind Newcastle. Learn to defend and we’d be in the top two. So, why can we not keep clean sheets? Is it down to the players or because of the way the team is set up?

I have long believed strong sides are built from the back. Get a solid spine in place and you’ve got a chance, especially if you can do it before the season starts. Rewind to the summer of 2015 and Neil signed young goalkeeper Jake Kean and three midfielders – Graham Dorrans, Joussouf Mulumbu and Robbie Brady. No move to strengthen the defence was made until January, when Klose was flown in from Wolfsburg and Ivo Pinto from Dinamo Zagreb. By then much of the damage had been done.

There was, briefly, an indication that Neil was not going to neglect the defence for a second consecutive summer break. Young French defender Jerome Onguene was reportedly in the directors’ box for our opening home game against Sheffield Wednesday, but in the event he remained at Sochaux. The only defensive arrival at Carrow Road was Michael Turner, back from his most recent loan spell at Hillsborough. In an office somewhere, Steven Whitakker meanwhile signed a one-year extension to his contract.Whoopee-do.

Neil once again waited until the January sales – a notoriously difficult environment to sign players – to bring in Mitchell Dijks on loan from Ajax to replace the departing Martin Olsson. The 6ft 4ins tall left-back looks a decent acquisition if early indications can be relief upon. But in terms of automatic promotion, that ship has sailed, and the Dutchman joins a side for which getting into the play-offs will be an uphill battle.

We might yet do it; stranger things have happened. But if we don’t, Neil’s failure to invest properly in a defence prone to the jitters and before the campaign began will be the most obvious place to start any post-mortem.