In a previous item I was rather scathing about Darel Russell’s second departure from Norwich.

I withdraw those remarks and apologise to Rusty.

I suspected that there may have been opposing views over the terms of a contract offer but allowed myself to be influenced on what Rusty was reported to have said about Preston playing with a better approach to the game than Norwich City.

For a man who must consider his future, Rusty had to weigh up the options. Unfortunately for him, by the time he had done so, the Norwich City offer was gone.

Under the circumstances, I wish him every success and hope he doesn’t look me out and boot a ball in my face...

Ours not to reason why, and all that, but it was noticeable that Korey Smith was absent from the Watford game.

Korey may be young and untried at this level, but he has the benefit of last season and his ball distribution brought Wes Hoolihan into play a considerable amount of time more than he was when at home to Watford last week.

Korey Smith also ran about the pitch as though he is out to claim the title of “Three Lungs” from now Academy coach, but one-time midfield regular, Gary Holt.

The lad closed players down by getting in their faces, not standing yards away and playing like he is a space invader from the old computer game.

For a youngster, Korey Smith shows a maturity on the field, and is not afraid to go shoulder to shoulder with the bully-boy tactics employed to put him off his game.

Norwich City’s Darel Russell has yet to decide whether or not to accept Paul Lambert’s contract terms or allow himself to be lured away by better offers elsewhere.

What a decision he must make. He left the Club before, hoping that he would get a better chance than he thought he had with the Canaries. The summer transfers had almost come to an end when he was eventually signed by Stoke who, at the time., had just been promoted to what was then Division One.

A few years after that, Norwich won promotion to the Premier League, albeit just one season. Domestic changes saw Rusty’s previous Norwich boss, Nigel Worthington, have his contract terminated by the Board which was under increasing pressure from the supporters to get rid of him.

In comes Peter Grant, who knew Rusty from his time as a player at Carrow Road. Peter Pointer managed to persuade Rusty to return and, unlike many other players that come back to Carrow Road for a second try, he did very well for himself.

Grant jumped ship when he realised that he had a hand in the problems being faced, only for Roeder to come in and make enemies of just about every player he took a dislike to. Rusty was one of a very few to avoid any publicly obvious falling out with the worst ever manager to have appeared in a Norwich City dugout.

Like Grant, Roeder had thumped the elevator’s “down” button, and City started on the spiral that saw Roeder sent packing.

Gunn had, according to the rumour mill, told Rusty that there was no room for him as long as he was in charge which, we all know now was very fortunately not for very long. In comes Paul Lambert.

We all know that Rusty likes to get forward, but he proved our engine room last season. He was sorely missed when he didn’t play. Supporters tend to concentrate on goal scorers, but Darel Russel was a vital tool in the box that not only helped Fraser Foster to keep so may clean sheets, but he set up plays that saw a bucket load of goals for the three front boys.

So, come July 1^st  Russell is a free agent and the press and supporters’ blogs are all hinting that he is being enticed by the Elland Road offers. It must be more than the money, though. Look at what Norwich City achieved the last time he played for another club. Then look what happened to Stoke when he came back here.

Rusty has a hard task to try and pick the right one. Perhaps Leeds United has a healthier looking financial footing and maybe, only maybe mind, maybe can afford to lure a better class of player. Then again, Leeds, despite the money and the “Big Club” label that people tend to attach to the name, the team had a real struggle to get out of League One, Division Three or whatever else the third tier might be called. Three times on the trot Leeds fell at the final hurdle.

Norwich, on the other hand, with a lowly budget and an untested manager, struck lucky in combining the right ingredients to bounce straight back up. Lambert has proved to many City supporters that he is another Martin O’Neil in the making. The man is going places and, hopefully, going there with Norwich City.

That is the dilemma facing Darel Russell. Two clubs, each with an eye on the Premiership. Rusty, what has Lambert just said about the squad members after promotion was secured? That each of them still has a part to play in the Championship and that it is up to them to secure their places. Yours is already secure, and you know that you will have a chance to prove yourself if City does get to the Premier League.

The obvious choice is Norwich City, Darel. Sign up for another few years. You know it makes sense.

In a personal article in the Daily Record today, the paper claims Paul Lambert is fighting to save his marriage after the strain of working hundreds of miles away from his family.

They go on to say that Lambert  is spending the close season fighting to rescue his 20-year marriage to wife Monica, the pair, who met as teenagers in their home town of Linwood, are childhood sweethearts.  But Monica, 39, stayed in the family home in Houston, Renfrewshire, with the couple's four children, Christopher, Kira, Nicola and Victoria, when Lambert landed the Norwich job last summer.

Daily Record


Read the rest for yourselves, if this is the case, this wonderful piece of journalism will certainly help the couple in their attempts to restore their marriage, I am sure I would want to pick up the paper and see my personal deatils plastered over the pages. No disrespects to Lambert, he isn't hardly a World Jet setter appearing in glossy mags, to warrant this sort of article about him.

If it is correct we simply wish Paul and all his family the vest best of luck in sorting through these and any other problems, somethings in life are simply more important than kicking a bag of wind about.

Yesterday’s news was all about the official findings of the Football Disciplinary Committee’s (FDC) review of the Paul Lambert case between Norwich City and Colchester United.

Many of today’s papers carry statements from the Norwich City camp that it is time a line was drawn underneath the whole affair and attention was directed towards football matters and the coming season.

Apart from the continuing ravings of the chairman at Colchester United who is intent on insisting that the FDC had got its findings wrong and that Norwich City should also be faced with a points deduction, as a warning to other clubs, he claims.

Not that almost a half a million quid for an untested, lower league manager isn’t deterrent enough. Cowling is looking back and assuming that Lambert may have performed a similar task at Colchester as he did at Norwich. Clearly ignoring the fact that Cowling had Premiership-proven Adie Boothroyd who failed to do anything with Cowling’s team.

Maybe the FDC should take more interest in the bleatings of a very poor loser and, maybe, consider that Cowling might just be doubting the judgement of the FDC. A matter which, by all intents and purposes, is tantamount to bringing the game into disrepute.

Or do they sit back and watch idly as this one cry baby continues his tireless efforts to create real animosity between both clubs?

I wrote yesterday about the smugness of Robbie Cowling. Today my colleague reports that Cowling is still not satisfied with what is a generous compensation package for an untried League One manager. As Paul Lambert was when we first approached him.

Yesterday I spoke of the likely irreparable damage Cowling was likely to cause between Norwich City supporters and Colchester United supporters. Most especially after the vitriolic build-up that Cowling had created about our visit to the Weston Homes Community mud bath last season.

Incidentally, from where I sat I could see hundreds of empty seats in the home supporters areas, despite Cowling bragging about a sell-out game.

As ever interest in what other clubs’ supporters think guides carrowroad dot net writers, so a search on Colchester United fan sites has revealed that even they are now tired of events and want Cowling to forget the past and concentrate helping manager number three build a squad.

One such view is given by a writer on the Vital Football’s Colchester United site. It reads:

“Lambert and all who sail with him are yesterday`s news now, as far as we`re concerned; now, since we`ve been paid in principle if not actually, so is this whole messy tribunal business.

Perhaps it`s time someone told Robbie Cowling, to whom we now say once more a very big thanks-but-no-thanks regarding his desire to still press a points deduction. You've done us proud, but let's just let sleeping Lamberts lie.”

(Link to full article)

Perhaps the wounds that Cowling has tried to inflict are really superficial. Perhaps the more right-thinking Col U supporter sees that the Football Disciplinary Committee has made a fair award very much in his Club’s favour, and that picking at scabs will only leave visible scars.

So, Robbie Cowling, you might sneer at what we Norwich City supporters have to say, but pay heed to your own supporters. They might just start to dislike you as much as we all do.

One of the longest-running sagas of the season that should never have been is at an end, although the details remain a secret.

Colchester Chairman, self confessed self abuser Robbie Cowling, is taking advantage of the Football League’s enforced confidentiality order in order to gloat over the compensation his Club, Colchester, was awarded in the Paul Lambert affair.

Yet the gloating stops when Cowling reckons that the sanctions stopped short of expectations. What did the boxing glove-less tool fiddler want? For Norwich to lose out on promotion, not because they were not the best side in the League, but because one baby spat his dummy out?

As mere supporters, the very bread and butter of the game, the ones that give the hierarchy jobs to do, we will not learn of the intricacies of the issue. The result will imply who was right and who was wrong, forgetting entirely that the final judgement all boils down to how people no better than you and I, with the suggestion of impartiality, view the case as put forward by the plaintiff and defendant. And, no matter how impartial a person is, it is hard to ignore the whining of a baby!

The whole affair can now go into the same file as the rest of the season that ought never to have been. Done and dusted, dealt with in a vigorous and professional manner where, in the end, Norwich City comes out on top.

Where our beloved Club can, as a whole, get back to its day job of fighting for a place in the Premier League.

And Colchester smugly wallows with a chairman that has damaged inter-Club relations almost irreparably.

Mr Hoof-it  Aidy Boothroyd is said to be in talks with Coventry, seemingly Cowling has given permission for him to talk to Coventry, hope it is about taking the job and not about the weather.. or another case could be winging it's way to the FA.

The Coventry Telgraph reports

AIDY Boothroyd has emerged as the latest candidate on Coventry City’s shortlist of potential new managers.

The 39-year-old is understood to have been given permission by his club Colchester United to speak to the Sky Blues and was at the Ricoh Arena this afternoon for talks.