It is safe to assume that City will be in the Championship next season. But instead of suffering disappointment, let's pause, think about that sentence for a while and give relieved and grateful thanks.
Yes, it was depressing at Leicester. What a badly-designed, poorly-finished dump the Walkers Stadium is, and what kind of power trip are the Leicester police on? Oh, and City were pants as well. Darrell Russell let us down with his moment of ill-discipline and after that Norwich were overwhelmed by a very ordinary team.
And, yes, it was deflating to see Hull take the point they definitely deserved from Carrow Road four days earlier. The quality Jay-Jay Okocha displayed was a reminder that there are players in our division who can unpick our defence with ease.
Yet my mind went back 14 weeks prior to that, to when City were utterly swamped by Watford at Carrow Road. That was the match which underlined how important athleticism is and how our team was bereft of it. That was the fixture which made me fear for our future.
But the Watford defeat proved to be John Hartson's last game for anyone. That big, Welsh Lardy Cake has now been replaced by another Welshman in our team, and the introduction of Ched Evans tells us much about what was wrong under Peter Grant and how Glenn Roeder has gone about putting it right.
During City's recent swash-buckling charge up the table, Roger Munby, the chairman, was asked on Radio Five Live what had brought about the transformation in Norwich fortunes. He talked about a team effort, and how everyone was now working really hard. He pointed out that some of Grant's signings were part of the revitalised squad.
Well, sorry, Roger, but if you honestly believe that Grant's team only needed to toil a tad more strenuously to lift themselves out of their slump, you are just…well, put it this way: I disagree.
The first third of the season was not just an aberration. Grant's Norwich had fundamental flaws. The team which struggled at Rochdale in August, imploded at Charlton in September and surrendered feebly at QPR in October was shockingly poor.
So Roeder set about stripping the squad of hapless misfits and Grant's summer signings from Scottish football; men who could pass the ball all day but could not get up and down the field.
In came a raft of Premiership wannabes; all of them fit and fast, mobile and motivated.
Kieran Gibbs saw little of the ball against Hull and James Henry demonstrated against Leicester that he is definitely not Thierry's long-lost brother. But it is the arrival of the loan star kids that has transformed Norwich.
They have introduced a willingness and an ability to put in the hard yards at speed.
Think Hartson, then think Evans. Then thank Evans.
It has been an expensive metamorphosis. Having wasted a small fortune on a large Hartson, City then had to spend heavily once the heavy one went back to West Brom and then into retirement.
Norwich must have paid Julien Brellier a lump sum to end the lump's contract. They took a financial hit by letting David Strihavka go back to the Czech Republic without a fee. Some of the loan signings will have involved paying fees to their clubs. All of them have meant paying Premiership-level wages.
And the board have sanctioned this spending knowing that it cannot be recouped. In the summer, the loan stars will disappear back to their clubs and Roeder will need more cash to fashion a new squad.
Darren Huckerby is unlikely to be part of that squad and that tells us a lot about Roeder's Norwich.
Hucks can be exhilarating or exasperating. Sadly, as he has become less nimble he has more often been the latter.
The moment Roeder lost patience was probably at Glanford Park, when Hucks fiddled with the ball by his own corner flag, lost it and did not make even a token gesture of pursuit as a Scunthorpe player cut in towards goal.
Of course Roeder relishes talent, but he demands that it embellishes hard work. A high level of skill is not sufficient on its own for our new manager.
Nor is he prepared to play with two out-and-out “wingers”. He has noted that doing so stretches the midfield four too thinly across the pitch. So if he selects the impressively in-form Lee Croft on one flank, then the other will be occupied by someone who tucks in a little and only ventures forward occasionally.
That job description is the exact opposite of what Hucks does, so he is almost certainly on his way, and his likely departure is proof of Roeder's pragmatism. There is more evidence in the way that David Marshall, clearly operating on instructions, shifts the ball upfield as quickly and as far as he can.
Roeder contends that he likes to see his sides play football, but most of all he likes to see them win.
I'll drink to that, but I shall also raise a glass to Huckerby when he goes. His arrival at Christmas 2003 was a sign that our club meant business, and began the momentum which carried City to the title.
If you list Norwich players over the years with sufficient talent to turn a match with a moment's quality, then you would have to include Martin Peters, Colin Suggett, Justin Fashanu, Craig Bellamy ? and Hucks.
Roeder wants to keep Gary Doherty after the end of his current deal this summer, although no player has divided opinion this season as much as the 'Ginger Pele'.
Half the callers to Radio Norfolk phone-ins think he is a donkey. Half think he is the player of the season.
My view is that he is someone whose confidence is brittle. When he is playing well, he looks unbeatable. Yet if one clearance shanks off his shin, then for the next ten minutes or so he is unsteady in all he attempts.
What I admire, however, is that even when he is having one of his wobbly episodes, he never hides; never shirks responsibility. He'll keep putting that balding bonce in where it might get bashed and keeps throwing his body in front of shots.
If he were to leave, it would be difficult to acquire anyone better. It would be impossible to find anyone braver.
So in the class of 2008-09, we can expect some survivors of Nigel Worthington's era ? Jason Shackell, the Doc, Adam Drury, Crofty. Grant's better buys (David Marshall, Jon Otsemobor, Mark Fotheringham) will be there. But next season's squad will be assembled largely by Roeder in the summer.
Like others, I have noted that our new manager appears to be a man on a mission. The irrational hatred which West Ham fans feel about him is unjust, and so is the usual appraisal of his work at Newcastle (that he did all right at first but then faltered). Norwich could benefit as he sets out to prove people wrong about him.
And he has shown that his network of contacts within the Premiership can also benefit Norwich as he seeks those fit, young athletes.
It was last summer's trading which undid Grant. It will be this summer's by which Roeder will be judged.
For the moment, however, I am just mightily relieved that he will be recruiting players for the Championship and not League One.
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