New City loan signing Ched Evans was hoping to take a leaf right out of Ishmael Miller's book and carve out quite a name for himself in the Championship.
Miller is two years Evans' senior in Jim Cassell's famed Manchester City Academy set-up and has proved something of a revelation in his own loan spell at high-flying West Bromwich Albion.
Some 23 places lower down the Championship ladder and both new Canary boss Glenn Roeder and his latest – and last – loan signing are hoping that a Miller's tale can be repeated in Norfolk over the next six, crucial weeks.
“What Ishmael's done has given me tons of confidence,” said the 18-year-old, with Miller having already bagged nine goals for the Baggies this season.
“Knowing that he can go there and do it and I think I can, really.”
Miller's reserve team side-kick certainly lacks little by way of self-belief – not hard when you're bagging one-and-a-half goals a game at Premier Reserve League level and arrive at crisis-hit, protest-threatened Carrow Road on the back of a mid-week hat-trick against the best the French Under-21 set-up has to offer.
“I've got 12 goals in eight games at Man City; got a hat-trick this week – I'm in really good form at the moment,” added the teenage Welshman.
“I'm scoring; I'm confident. So I think I'll come here and get some goals – and get them off the bottom, hopefully.”
Earlier City boss Roeder had revealed a little more of the thinking behind his loan swoop – and the role that his pal and England Under-21 boss Stuart Pearce had played in Evans' timely arrival.
“I haven't seen a lot of him – I've taken him on a recommendation,” admitted Roeder, with Evans joining Martin 'Tiny' Taylor, South African midfielder Matty Pattison and left-back Mo Camara in the manager's loan ranks.
“But people that I respect in the game – Stuart Pearce, in particular, knows the lad inside out – and I spoke to one of the main coaches at Manchester City and I respect his judgement,” said Roeder.
“And we had him watched in the first Under-21 game last week when he did particularly well and we got a good report on him,” added the City manager, impressed by that fearlessness of youth.
“I saw him in that game in which he scored the hat-trick – of which two were penalties – and the way that he wrapped the penalties away, he is very, very confident.”
An impression that was, it seems, only confirmed by their first face-to-face meeting at Colney yesterday.
“He turned up here and we had a chat with him and you can see that he's a quietly confident young man that's looking forward to the challenge. And his goal-scoring record is very impressive.
“I know it's at youth team level, but you can only score goals in the team that you're playing in.”
Repeating such feats in the Championship is clearly another big step up from Premier Reserve League level, but the lad himself looks straight out of the Chrissy Martin mould physically and should, on that level, be able to cope.
At 18, the best players do – as Jermain Defoe, Joe Cole and Co proved under Roeder's command at West Ham United. The manager also dropped a slight hint that unlike Messrs Pattison, Taylor and Camara, Evans might find himself on the bench initially.
Ready to step into Jamie Cureton's shoes as and when the game demands.
“Even if it's not week in, week out starting when these players were used on the bench, they'd come on and have an effect on the game – and he's going to need to do that.”
Evans himself certainly feels the time is now nigh for him to face the next challenge in his young, professional life. He is, right now, having a ball at reserve and Under-21 level. Time, therefore, to step up to the Championship plate.
“I'm confident at the moment and playing well, so it'll be a good opportunity for me,” he said.
He is, in every probability, in the kind of form that City's own young hopeful Martin found himself in last January when the Beccles youngster stepped into the injured Robert Earnshaw's shoes with such aplomb.
Thereafter, however, and second album-stroke-second season syndrome appears to have hit Norwich's home-grown England Under-18 talent. Time to borrow someone else's. And if that ruffles Martin's feathers… good, would be Roeder's thinking.
Evans' three goals at Ninian Park did, it seems, merely confirm the thought in the mind of Manchester City boss Sven Goran Eriksson that now was the time to finish the young man's education off in the Championship.
“I spoke to him before I went away for the internationals and I don't know whether he was too happy about letting me out just yet,” said Evans.
“But the hat-trick obviously helped me come out on loan and I'm pleased to be here.”
Now all he wants is his chance to shine – the opportunity to prove that Miller is not the only hot young strike prospect to be rolling off the footballer factory line at Platt Lane.
“I just can't wait to play with the lads and see what they're like – and I can't wait to play in the stadium either,” said Evans, wholly unmoved by Norwich's sorry predicament locked to the bottom rung of the table.
In fact, it merely added to the fun that the teenager foresees.
“That was another reason that I came here,” said Evans, defying most people's usual logic as to whether or not Norwich were a team worth joining given that the Canaries have one big toe already in League One.
“I think I need challenges now – and this is a really big challenge for me,” he said. “So I'm really looking forward to it and, hopefully, I can do something for them and get them off the bottom.”
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