So Snoddy’s been lured away by the smell of Mustard, Cow Manure and the Alan Partridge Mid Morning Matters Slot on North Norfolk Digital.

Is Norwich a bigger club than Leeds? Of course they aren’t, they don’t have our history, pedigree, fanbase, and to be frank they aren’t attracting interest from the US, Middle East or quite frankly anywhere outside Norfolk.

But let’s face it. They’re Premier League and we aren’t.

Joining a faceless bottom feeding Premier league side may seem mercenary, but it’s a means to an end. Do Howson, Johnson and Snodgrass see themselves enjoying Champions League football while playing for the Canaries? Even a top six finish? Of course not.

With Paul Lambert gone, Norwich may well struggle this year, and become a yo-yo club, they’ve done it before, and by crikey it hurt them almost as much as us. But what they do have of course is an owner who has a deep affection for them, and a board who are concerned with matters football.

That’s what’s swung the ball in their favour.

In his last statement to the press Robert Snodgrass was scathing, it was a clear vote of no confidence. He didn’t believe Bates copyrighted and trademarked BS, he’d seen idealistic Simon Grayson and Gary McAllister believe that if they played good football they could get out of League One on a shoestring budget, and with the former of course the Championship – `never mind Ken I’ll deal with him’ – you can almost hear it now.

But even at his tender age he recognises a dead end situation. So when Warnock offered to build a team round him, he’d already heard it all before. He’d already put the keys in the Aston Martin, and programmed the Sat Nav for East Anglia. He might end up with a few Scotland caps as a result, or as he’s no doubt hoping, get noticed by a Newcastle or an Everton and get snapped up as Norwich fall through the trapdoor at the end of this season.

Ken Bates’ legacy hasn’t even begun yet – he’s still blooming here, hence our approach still being driven by a balancing of the books – 4 players in well Whoopidy –do, who else was waiting for Snodgrass or McCormack to leave shortly after to fund that?..

Whilst many of us have a silent confidence that he’ll soon be gone it’s the negative atmosphere he’s created around the club that will be hard to shift. Snodgrass is probably about the last top quality player on our books, and it will be hard to replace him, with our limited funds. Instead of promising him the moon on a stick and then not delivering, we should have offered him this current bumper contract over 2 years ago and quietly got on with funding the team building.

We didn’t and it meant that any side who are genuine, already in the top flight and don’t have Ken Bates as their chairman are immediately at an advantage to us. In my opinion, it didn’t matter who we signed this summer, Snodgrass had already had enough.

You only have to look at Howson’s face as he holds up the Norwich shirt on the club photo, he barely cracks a smile. Ken Bates robbed him of his dream to play for Leeds in the Premier League.

With Snodgrass – like Howson before him – the damage had already been done. Now here’s the needle for all Leeds United fans – Cheers Ken.