Norwich City is a good football club – but maybe some people have got into a comfort zone.
It was Bryan Hamilton who christened the training ground Costa del Colney - that's one thing that Bryan said that will always stick with me.
Maybe we did get into a bit of a comfort zone. I was here for a lot of years and there were few players that had been there a long time and maybe we had got into a comfort zone. Great facilities for training, great city to live in, Carrow Road a lovely stadium.
Sometimes you need a good shake-up and I think that's what’s needed from top to bottom now - people need to sit down and think, ‘do I need to be a part of Norwich City Football Club’ and if they do, great, they've got to give it their all. If they don't, they need to move on and they need to bring people in who want to be here, who want to make the club successful again.
A few years back Paul Lambert gave chances to lads who played at a lower league level, had been disregarded maybe when they were younger from bigger clubs, and gave them a second chance. And they grabbed it with both hands. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't.
Don't get me wrong, there has been a lot of good work done over the past five, six, seven years. There have some been some good signings made. I just think people have taken their eye off the ball. And I think we know who we're talking about there. That is Stuart Webber’s responsibility at the end of the day. He's put a team together to recruit players - and I'm not talking Stuart spending hours in the car going to watch games and different players; he's got a team to help him to do that. Football's totally different now, there's a team member for every aspect of the game. Maybe the team that he's put together isn't quite what it should be. Maybe you should have someone who's played the game at a professional level. I don’t know who his recruitment team is, but there are some good people around who can spot a player. But it's all done on paper now - I'd rather go watch someone and I’d get a good idea from a 90-minute game if he is going to be good enough for what we want. You can send me all the spreadsheets with all the things that players do. It's like when you play games - XG forward passes, entries into final third - that's great. But what's the score?
You get to find out if he’s a good character, does he go missing when things aren't going quite right? Does he shy away and hide? You can't tell that from a sheet.
If you look at squad depth, the players, are those at Luton, Millwall, Blackburn, Middlesbrough even, Sheffield United, better than Norwich? I wouldn't think that they've got more talent than Norwich. I don't think there's bad players here, I think they're talented. But talent takes you so far, you've got to have spirit and togetherness. I get the feeling at the minute they are a group of individuals, they're not a team, and somehow David Wagner, or whoever it is, has got to mould these individuals into a team because I don't see a togetherness there. I don't see a team spirit there.
Sometimes I think there's a lack of care, and that's inexcusable. It’s as if, well, we've lost again, it doesn't really matter. And you have to say, start of the season I looked at the team, one or two had gone but all in all I was happy with the squad and I thought it would be a top two finish. I didn't have a clue who was going to go up automatically with them, didn't really care, but I thought they had a had a really good chance of bouncing back like they always have done.
It hasn't happened for one reason or another. Players need to reflect, look at themselves in the mirror. Have they done enough? Have they done their utmost to try and get this club back in the Prem? I think some have, to be fair. But there's only one or two, a handful at most, that can come out of this season with any sort of credit and hold their head up high.
WRONG DIVISION
The season finishes on Monday and a big decision has to be made - is David Wagner the man they believe can get the club back to winning ways and get the feelgood factor back again.
Because I've not felt a divide between the club and its supporters since probably my first season here, when it was bad.
They wanted Mike Walker out, they wanted Delia and the board out. There were protests outside the main reception in the City Stand. It wasn't a nice atmosphere to be playing ion. This reminds me of back then. Supporters have fallen out of love with the football club. They still support it, because that's what fans do.
Obviously they've had some good times over the last few years. But look at Ipswich and you just get the feeling that that is a club that's united. That's one thing Kieran McKenna has done. He and the new owners have made good decisions, they have had good recruitment at that level and haven't spent loads. As Neil Warnock did when he took over at Cardiff, and he's a shrewd old dinosaur. He knew what to say at the right time. He united the whole football club. The fans hated the owner and wanted him out, but Neil came in and got them organised. Yes, they played a certain way, but he got them promoted.
On Monday, City need to go out, show they care, show they are passionate, show they want to be here. Go and put a performance on, something that you haven't done for a while. Go and play with a freedom. And go and give a certain player the send-off he deserves.
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