Frustrating and exasperating, but JHT still deserves more time

Yesterday at 02:34 AM

The dreaded international break – but also an ideal time to look at where we are as a club.

Which is… no chance of the playoffs and free of the relegation mire barring a horrendous turn of events.

It is also time for Johannes Hoff Thorup to take stock of what we have done well and what we have done poorly, and to consider the team’s composition for these last eight games.

For me, I would play Ruairi McConville, Elliot Myles, and Uriah Djedje from the start – at least now and then – to offer them a taste of first-team football; that is if Thorup sees them as in and around the first-team squad next season.

So, what has the team done well this season?

Well, that's obvious – score goals as we are only second to Leeds United in the Championship scoring stakes but equally obvious is that only five clubs have conceded more.  

Sky Sports recently produced a graphic that put us in the top seven for attacking stats and the bottom three for defending. Now, I know a lot of the stats produced today are regarded as bunkum but these ones are reflective of what we are seeing.

One thing that has emerged this season is a distinctive style of play, I was at Stoke (h) and it could and should have been 7-0, not 4-2.

The game encapsulated the team's whole season in 90+ minutes. Great going forward, dreadful at the back, but that doesn't automatically mean the back four are culpable – it goes deeper than that.

When the team goes in a forward direction, JHT has done well. When they don't have the ball, not so great.

Connor Southwell wrote a great piece in the Pink Un earlier this week entitled, 'Why it is too early to judge Thorup and City’s project'.

The clue is in the title.

I agree with Connor and would stick with Thorup.

As I have said, it has been an up-and-down season, where the injury record has been dreadful again (I do think the club need to look into this as it’s becoming a trend), there have been many new players to integrate, many old faces leaving, and all while introducing a new style of play.

But none of this excuses this team's inability to hang on to a lead, which is awful – far more than any other team in the Championship. It's a trend that started last season but has gone to a new level in 2024-25. I also believe we need more pace in the team.

Yet, with all the above taken into account, I do think JHT deserves another season; one that perhaps can be assessed again around Christmas 2025.

But many improvements have to be made … among them the following:

• Attacking set pieces
• Defending det pieces
• The (in)ability to hold on to a lead
• The conceding of cheap goals.

Make no mistake though. Some of the natives are already restless.

I have a mate (let's call him Trev – because that's his name) who is getting very frustrated with this season and, as a season ticket holder, I can see why.

When we last met, I took with me a list of Daniel Farke’s first signings for the club and, like me, he couldn’t remember many of them; such was the churn of players both in and out over that summer.

But Farke was given time after a relatively poor first season and look how that turned out.

I am not, of course, saying that means next season JHT will lead us to the 'Unpromised Land' but he deserves a chance to show that he can improve this team. 

Sacking him at the end of this season – as some are suggesting – would mean starting from scratch (again). A new head coach, new players and, possibly, another new style of play.

My group of fellow supporters all felt, without exception, that this season was going to be a mid-table finish. We knew it would be a revolution, not an evolution. But none of them expected the team to keep surrendering leads … it is so infuriating.

To be honest, the prospect of Premier League football again sends a shiver down my spine, but I thought Delia and Michael’s recent interview in The Times was telling. They made it quite clear that they hated the EPL.

I have thought this for quite a while, and I do think that “feeling” has undermined the club's efforts to stay in the EPL.

It was never their fault for not having enough money to compete but it was their choice to stay around when there were always other parties out there who were interested in taking over Norwich City FC.

So many wasted promotions.

This time, if it happens, we will have a better chance with Mark Attanasio running the club; not a huge one but that financial edge that, for example, Brentford had over us a few seasons back will be narrowed. 

But that's a worry for another day.

In the here and now, the Bristol City game highlighted again that, as a team, we are too slow to get back into a defensive shape once we lose the ball high up the pitch.

That was a game we should have won, let alone lost.

And it summed up perfectly what a frustrating season it has been.