Thoughts on Norwich City and the new manager

Earlier today I was contacted by someone from a website looking for a Norwich fan to answer a couple of questions about how the season has been going, what went wrong for Daniel Farke and what the hopes were for the new manager Dean Smith. As it turned out, by the time I’d written my piece they had found someone else and didn’t need me. So it doesn’t go to waste, here’s what I wrote:

Verdict on season so far

It couldn’t have gone much worse. I approached Norwich’s return to the Premier League with some trepidation because I feel as fans we are still damaged from the awful experience we had last time. When the fixture list came out and gave us the champions, the previous champions and the FA Cup winners in our first three games I was concerned that we would be playing catch up and low on confidence from a very early stage and that is exactly what happened.

Verdict on manager

There will always be a lot of love for Daniel Farke from Norwich fans. When he took over the club had a poor squad, full of players who either weren’t good enough or didn’t want to be here. He played a big role in the development of James Maddison and the money we received from selling him to Leicester helped to get the club back onto a sound financial footing. I have never seen a Norwich manager with such confidence in youth – Max Aarons, Ben Godfrey, Jamal Lewis, Todd Cantwell and Andrew Omobamidele are just some of the academy products that blossomed under his guidance. He had a real connection with the fans and, in supposedly one of the hardest leagues of them all to get out of, delivered the Championship title twice.

Sadly, he was never able to crack the Premier League. I had desperately hoped that he had learned from two years ago and this time would take us into the top flight with an attitude of ‘unfinished business’. Unfortunately, he shied away from the attractive, possession-based style of play that had brought us success and tried to make the team play in a way that they weren’t capable of. By the end, he didn’t seem to know what his best eleven was or how to arrange them on the pitch and he simply ran out of road. I have seen the world ‘underwhelming’ used a lot in the reaction to the appointment of Dean Smith (including from myself) but the more I think about it, the more I think he fits. He just needs to find the right combination to get the club feeling good about itself again. I am convinced that the squad have not shown anywhere near to what they can do so far and if he can get them going then I honestly think we could still stay up. Good luck to him, we will be right behind him.