Jerseybean

+ he’s heading to Jersey…..https://www.bailiwickexpress.com/jsy/community/neil-warnock-announced-headline-speaker-jersey-fa-awards-night/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Bailiwick Express News - JERSEY EDITION&utm_content=Bailiwick Express News - JERSEY EDITION+CID_5b40f2d9213e6f487cd9281c52934f0a&utm_source=Email marketing software&utm_term=Read more#.Y-o9sS-nxE4

Also a trip to Plymouth next season is looking a distinct possibility.

Assuming we don’t get promoted ? which of these would you prefer facing next season? Crystal Palace, Leicester City, Nottingham Forest, Wolverhampton Wanderers, West Ham United Leeds United, Everton, AFC Bournemouth, Southampton.

In Cheltenham but looks decent: https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/whats-on/food-drink/affordable-michelin-starred-restaurant-less-8129878?fbclid=IwAR1GmIYxQqOw8XrGGNAPoKdnXs8U2aUyhr5cmDu9X4i9dw94cDpcx5wMNCY

Ratings from yesterday https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/bristol-city-player-ratings-norwich-8138369?utm_source=bristol_live_newsletter&utm_campaign=bcfc_newsletter2&utm_medium=email

As per title he lasted three months! https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/64616084

Enjoyed NPs grin as he spoke about players being welcomed to the Club but not being allowed to feel comfortable on the pitch - nail on head for me. Consistently under LJ too many were allowed to just turn up and turn out, NP has certainly turned that around and when he has spoken about changing the culture he has been careful not to criticize what went before. https://youtu.be/2naZbs0bOsU

Thank you for popping by again and for your excellent contribution to the opening post, enjoy your evening and safe journey home to you and Mrs Wolf.

Mehmeti was undisclosed but probably £1m and certainly not £5m

Outstanding collective team performance, hard to pick a MotM. Well played everyone involved on and off the pitch, a very well deserved home win and a shape, mindset, workrate and confidence that’s a joy to watch. Shout out to the BCFC fans who got behind the team throughout. Well played you REDS!

Here’s our line up COYR

FtW There’s some confusion about timing with us ? on FB (as per the match day opening thread) it says 7:01-7:59 but elsewhere it says - 3:08pm (8:01.. 8:02.. 8:59 on Matchday Clock) - A minutes applause

ABOE on Whiteladies Road…https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/whats-on/food-drink/gallery/first-look-inside-aboe-new-8133808?utm_source=bristol_live_newsletter&utm_campaign=daily_newsletter2&utm_medium=email

Programme: https://www.bcfc.co.uk/news/captain-weimann-in-the-robins-online-programme/

AG8 Events for Saturday - 1pm - 6 of the Ashton Gate 8 walking concourse and fan village - 2:45pm - Take seats to show appreciation to the Ashton Gate 8 - 3:08pm (8:01.. 8:02.. 8:59 on Matchday Clock) - A minutes applause

Just watched Brum dominate and beat WBA, it’s an omen, an away team in yellow and greeen pushing for the play-offs well beaten…….

It’s an omen an away team in yellow and green are dominated by a team below them in the league…..

Not in Bristol and not a restaurant so a bit left-field nevertheless supposedly does a brilliant ploughmans ?? https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid02CBogafivML3cNouqRkdBr9apDK8Xa1KYgsvu5PDDwUjAn3UqFdC1gG8eS8AVsLM8l&id=132525063479352

I used to be indecisive now I just can’t make mind up! Somebody will win 2-1 or it could be a draw ? what you going for City Oz?

Have allowed youngsters Callum Wood, Joe Porton and Tommy Backwell to depart the Championship club on loan for a short period. Backwell and Wood have headed to nearby non-league side Yate Town, whilst Porton has moved to Melksham Town, both on initial short-term deals, which could be extended. All three players can be recalled from their clubs, and they will continue to train at the High Performance Centre during the day, whilst also training in the night with their respective teams.

https://www.lep.co.uk/sport/football/preston-north-end/preston-north-end-top-scorer-ched-evans-receives-four-match-ban-for-violent-conduct-after-altercation-with-bristol-citys-alex-scott-4022442

Twenty two-thousand-plus supporters will make their way through the turnstiles in BS3 as we aim to extend our unbeaten run to eight games in all competitions. Quiz question… which member of the England World Cup winning team made 200+ appearances for Norwich City? Back in September we lost 3-2 at Carrow Road, https://www.bcfc.co.uk/news/highlights-norwich-city-3-2-bristol-city/ A result that left us in 7th place and them 2nd in the table. Ahead of this game they are six points ahead of us. Section 82 have organised a display to welcome back the Ashton Gate Eight, who 41 years ago made remarkable personal sacrifices that kept our club alive. This will coincide with a planned minute’s applause in the 8th minute (7:00-7:59 on the scoreboard). An interesting look back at encounters between us and them: https://norwichcity.myfootballwriter.com/2023/02/09/we-meet-again-bristol-city-4/ They have bounced between the Premiership and Championship for the last few seasons. Since being relegated from the Premiership in 1994/95, they has been promoted a total of five times (2003/04, 2009/10, 2010/11, 2014/15, 2018/19) and relegated six times (1994/95, 2004/05, 2008/09, 2013/14, 2015/16, 2019/20), including one season (2009/10) spent in the third tier. Norwich City F.C. was formed following a meeting at the Criterion Cafe in Norwich on 17 June 1902 by a group of friends led by two former Norwich CEYMS players, and played their first competitive match against Harwich and Parkeston, at Newmarket Road on 6 September 1902. Here’s a link to a brief history: https://the-football-archive.com/2020/03/29/norwich-city-a-brief-history/ and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwich_City_F.C. Our record over the years isn’t impressive we’ve won 20, drawn 18 and lost 37. Interesting to look at our team sheet (see photo) when we played them away just two years ago with Holden in charge, really illustrates how much NP has changed things. They’ve scored eight goals in their last two away matches although their confidence would have been shaken with a 3-0 home loss to Burnley at the weekend, two of those goals coming from corners. Krul's distribution didn’t help either. Their fans have consistently bemoaned the fact this season that ‘He never seems to throw the ball to colleagues in decent positions.’ Here’s what their manager had to say: https://www.norfolklive.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/wagner-burnley-norwich-bristol-city-8115869 Dean Smith was their head coach. He put pen to paper on a two-and-a-half-year contract when Daniel Farke was sacked and assistant head coach Craig Shakespeare joined with him. NP worked with CS at Leicester and Watford. Prior to this appointment Smith was manager of Aston Villa. He was sacked in December https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/64017762 He was succeeded by David Wagner. The 51-year-old German, best known for his success with Huddersfield Town, signed a 12-month rolling contract with the club. Famous fans include Hugh Jackman, Stephen Fry, Jake Humphrey, Simon Thomas, Ed Balls and Philip Pullman. Their biggest victory in the league was a 10–2 win against Coventry City in the Division Three (South) in 1930. Their heaviest defeat in the league was 10–2 against Swindon Town in 1908 in the Southern Football League. On deadline day they signed 19-year-old Brazilian winger Marquinhos on loan from Arsenal until the end of the season. Rob Newman, Timm Klose and Chris Martin played for both teams. We will be missing Naismith, Conway and Kane. Harry Cornick and Anis Mehmeti may get to make their home debuts. NP pre-match: RA pre-match: Officials - ref Christopher Kavanagh, he became a Select Group 1 referee for the 2017/18 season after working his way up the football pyramid. The Manchester-born referee started officiating in 1998 as a 13-year-old, plying his trade in local football, before being promoted to take charge of matches in the National League in 2012. Kavanagh refereed in the Football League regularly from the 2014/15 season and in 2016/17 he was the man in the middle on 27 occasions for the EFL Championship campaign. Prior to his promotion to Select Group 1 status, Kavanagh made his Premier League debut in April 2017 as West Bromwich Albion lost to Southampton 1-0 at The Hawthorns, while he has been fourth official in the top flight on a number of occasions. He will be assisted by Craig Taylor and Sam Lewis, the fourth official is Sam Allison. The Delia effect Delia Smith is a majority shareholding in Norwich City, with her husband. Both Smith and Michael Wynn-Jones were season ticket holders at Norwich and were invited to invest in the club, which had fallen on hard times. In February 2005, Smith attracted attention during the half-time break of a home match against Manchester City. At the time Norwich were fighting an ultimately unsuccessful battle against relegation from the Premier League, and to rally the crowd, Smith grabbed the microphone from the club announcer on the pitch and said: "A message for the best football supporters in the world: we need a 12th man here. Where are you? Where are you? Let's be 'avin' you! Come on!" Norwich lost the match 3–2. Smith denied suggestions in the media that she had been drunk while delivering the speech though she did concede that "maybe in the heat of the moment I didn't choose the best words". An interesting insight into where Norwich are at the moment: https://www.pinkun.com/news/23303799.norwich-city-mike-taylor-canaries-fan-column/ I reached out to a Norwich fan for his perspective on their season, thank you FeedtheWolf, who had this to say…. So here we are; it's February already, and despite Dean Smith's best attempts to snip the string on our yo-yo, we're still part of the seething mass of clubs fighting for the playoffs while Burnley and Sheffield United seemingly stroll to the automatic places. First, a little context: having cantered to the title in our two previous second-tier seasons, the sense of expectation was keenly felt among Norwich fans – although nobody had seen much on the pitch to suggest that we'd be cruising to a hat-trick of Championship trophies. Dean Smith had been brought in to try and make us tougher to beat; for all Daniel Farke's strengths (and there were many), his insistence on playing out from the back got us found out horribly in the top flight. We were too often bullied and often hopelessly outplayed, and most fans accepted that it was probably time to roll the dice despite Farke being possibly the most popular manager we've ever had. Suffice it to say that Smith's 'new manager bounce' was similar to dropping a blancmange; a couple of gutsy victories, followed by an ever-expanding ugly mess on the floor of the Premier League. A lot of fans were thoroughly fed up with Smith and his football even before our fate was sealed; some (myself included) felt we at least owed him a summer window to remould the squad into something that could compete for promotion. On paper, it seemed our squad was good enough to be in the hunt for the automatic places. As well as adding unknown quantities in Brazilian midfielder Gabriel Sara and Chilean playmaker Marcelino Nunez, we looked to have finally filled the glaring gap in the defensive midfield by signing Isaac Hayden on loan from Newcastle for the season. Despite an inauspicious start, with defeats at Cardiff and Hull sandwiched by a home draw with Wigan, we soon started grinding out results. Six wins on the spin, including an entertaining 3-2 win over the Robins, propelled us up the table – but even then, we weren't dominating matches. Josh Sargent, who looked woefully out of his depth in the Prem, scored six in six and appeared to be a totally new player; with the talismanic Teemu Pukki also fit and firing again, things looked good... at least on the surface. But still, there was a nagging feeling that something wasn't quite right. We didn't seem to have any discernible style of play; we made a token effort to tippy-tap it around the back four for a bit, before losing interest and hitting an aimless long ball (or, at best, a targeted channel ball). Results turned. After a decent 1-0 win at Blackpool at the start of October, the wheels started to fall off. Consecutive home defeats to Preston and Luton, coupled with a meek 2-1 surrender at Watford, showed us how far we were from truly competing this season. We papered over the cracks with a deceptively uninspiring 3-1 win over Stoke, performed much better in a 0-0 home draw with QPR, snuck a 2-1 win at Rotherham... and then things got ugly. In our last match before the World Cup break, we threw away a lead to lose 2-1 at home to Middlesbrough, leaving us on the worst form of the slew of clubs all scrapping for the top six. The atmosphere inside Carrow Road was filthy, and the fans gave Smith pelters long before the final whistle. It seemed like the natural time to make a change, but the powers-that-be stuck with their man. In our first game back we got a 1-0 win at Swansea (Pukki scored in the first minute, then we got absolutely battered for the remaining 89 and somehow clung on). A 2-0 reverse at home to Blackburn was followed by Smith's nadir (and, mercifully, his final stand) on Boxing Day. In a relatively even game away to Luton, we conceded on the hour before equalising shortly afterwards (Pukki, naturally). Luton were then reduced to 10 men but still managed to get a last-minute winner. The writing was on the wall (when both sets of fans are singing 'you're getting sacked in the morning', you're probably toast), and Smith finally got his marching orders. After a couple of home games under a caretaker duo (one point gained, negligible improvement), we appointed the affable German-American David Wagner, who had previously got Huddersfield promoted to the Premier League alongside our director of football Stuart Webber. A safe bet for Webber, sure, but Wagner was (and is) committed to the brave, front-foot football that had been so sadly lacking for the previous year-and-a-bit. After losing at home to Blackburn (again!) in the FA Cup in his first match in charge, this time we saw a proper bounce. We demolished Preston 4-0 away in a scarcely believable display of attacking intent, before going 3-0 up inside 20 minutes at Coventry the following weekend. Ten minutes later it was 3-2, but we steadied the ship and finished strongly to get a 4-2 win. Last week's humbling by Vincent Kompany's magnificent Burnley side was every bit as one-sided as the scoreline suggested, although the nature of the three goals was concerning (one goalkeeping howler, the other two straight from corners). It's very early days under Wagner, but the feel-good factor appears to be back, and there's a real intent to press the opposition high, take risks and entertain the fans. As for the personnel: in goal, Tim Krul is looking increasingly error-prone, and an injury to Angus Gunn is probably the only thing keeping him in the team at the moment. Our back four is likely to be (right to left): Max Aarons (reliable as ever, lucky to still have him), Grant Hanley (captain, deceptively fast, quality at this level), Andrew Omobamidele (young Irish centre-back, has looked incredibly mature but having a bit of a dip in form recently), and Dimi Giannoulis (loves getting forward, iffy defensively, seems to make at least one horrendous mistake every game at the moment). In midfield, with Isaac Hayden still injured (it seems we signed a player with only one knee) and talented box-to-boxer Liam Gibbs strangely out of favour, we'll go with Kenny McLean in the more defensive role (tireless worker, great team player, bizarrely underrated by many Norwich fans), probably alongside our Brazilian enigma Gabriel Sara (clearly talented but infuriatingly inconsistent). With the Todd Cantwell circus finally rolling out of town, the attacking midfield positions will likely be taken by Kieran Dowell (perennial underachiever who has looked excellent since Wagner arrived), Josh Sargent in the '10' role (a real handful, excellent presence and work rate, finishing much improved), and then possibly Onel Hernández on the other side (a wild card with strength and pace, but wildly fluctuating end product). And, up top, the phenomenal Teemu Pukki. Guaranteed 10 goals a season in the Prem, even when we're total crap, and scores for fun in this league. The most natural finisher I've seen in 35 years of following The Canaries. Runs his heart out every week, chases lost causes, never complains... just an all-around good egg. A magnificent egg, in fact. A golden egg. And, thanks to that synopsis, guaranteed to miss three open goals on Saturday. On the bench we'll probably have Nunez (unless he starts in place of Onel), plus Marquinhos (an attacking Brazilian we've recently signed on loan from Arsenal), the ever-industrious Adam Idah, and probably Christos Tzolis (recently recalled from a loan in the Eredivisie and still very much an unknown quantity). Overall, I'd expect us to get into the top six, although whether promotion is possible (or even desirable, given our current squad) is a moot point. I'd expect it to be a free-flowing, high-octane game on Saturday, so I'm predicting a 2-2 draw. Oh yeah, and did I mention that we're on the brink of a possible takeover, with the American owner of the Milwaukee Brewers seemingly about to make a play for Delia and hubby's majority shareholding? https://www.pinkun.com/news/23168388.norwich-city-special-report-mark-attanasio-milwaukee-brewers/ It's never boring... The answer…..Martin Peters

Good win 3-1