I have what some might say is a guilty secret.

In my wild youth, I dabbled in recreational miniature gaming, what some might otherwise know as Warhammer 40k.

That’s right, the game set ‘in a grim dark future’ where you use little model soldiers of orks, space marines and the such like, throwing dice to decide their fates. Due to this past, I feel I can maybe understand how Stuart Webber is feeling right now. Now you might say this is fanciful, but hear me out.

Imagine you have your Ork Warboss, Ghazghkull Thraka, standing off against a squad of Space Marines, we’ve all been there right? Right?

You have a bunch of dice in your hand, for every four or over you roll, you get a hit.

You know you won’t hit on every dice, but you have a whole handful, surely you can’t completely miss. You roll… and all you have is a bunch of ones, twos and threes.

You blaze every shot into the air and fail to dent the pristine Space Marines’ power armour. Your opponent looks on gleefully, knowing it is their turn with the dice next, while all you can do is stare at your roll, ashen faced.

I imagine Stuart Webber looks upon his summer signings with the same look of horror, disbelief, and incredulity that a 13-year-old me had when I stared at dice that had betrayed me. How could this happen?

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Webber would have known that out of the nine signings the club made in the summer that some wouldn’t hit.

Norwich can’t afford to shop in a premium market when the risks are lower. Although, even spending the big bucks doesn’t work out – ask Thomas Tuchel how £90m striker Romelu Lukaku is getting on for example.

However, despite knowing that the club were taking risks on their transfers, Webber can’t have expected that they would all come in so under expectation.

Ozan Kabak had played in the Champions League for Liverpool, Billy Gilmour was the toast of the town after a man of the match display against England. You’d hope for at least one of the nine to come in with a roll of five or six, not the bunch of ones and twos that we are currently seeing turn out weekly for Norwich. There have been flashes for some – most notably Milot Rashcia – but not enough and not regularly.

There must be a question over whether it is the players not being good enough, or the coaches not using them effectively, that are the cause for such displays. I’m probably in a minority of Norwich fans when I think the squad isn’t as bad as we are seeing on match days. The team look bereft of ideas or a philosophy.

Remember having a philosophy? Remember Farke-ball? Even when results were bad or Norwich looked outclassed, you could at least understand what they were trying to do. Now I have no idea what Norwich want to do in any given moment. They don’t look to keep possession, they don’t look to press hard, they don’t seem to play on the counter. When you look at the teams that have survived in the Premier League with limited spending they all have something in common – a defined style. Burnley go direct with big forwards for example, Southampton press harder than almost anyone etc.

It is a cop out to say “the players aren’t good enough” without really thinking about whether the players are even given a chance. That being said, there are obvious gaps in the Norwich squad, the most notable being that two of Norwich’s best players in Emi Buendia and Oliver Skipp were not replaced in the summer but I still feel there is more to the players at Smith’s disposal than we are being shown.

With seven games to go relegation is inevitable, but the joy of sport (much like Warhammer) is there is always another chance to turn things around. Always anther roll of the dice, so to speak, but will it be Smith and Webber who are the ones holding them and praying for sixes come the beginning of next season?