He must be thinking 'what have I let myself in for?' But even so, City striker Grant Holt remained defiant after the Canaries' opening day nightmare against Colchester at Carrow Road.
It almost seems even more surreal the day after the event. A 7-1 home defeat to your supposed minnows from down the road is just plain embarrassing, there is no point beating around the bush.
But it is also important not to get too carried away just yet. And the message from Holt was 'don't panic!', even if he joined City boss Bryan Gunn in issuing an apology to the long suffering Canary nation.
“Of course we should apologise, yes. But I think it was just one of those days, everyone has them,” said City's 'marquee' summer signing.
“I can't see it happening again and we've just got to get on with it and bounce back. We've got a lot of games coming up to erase that performance and result. If we win a couple of games by the time we come back here to Carrow Road then it will all be forgotten about.”
In fairness, it must have been difficult to face the press shortly after a performance like that on your debut, but this will certainly not be a result that will be forgotten about easily.
It opened up some nasty relegation wounds and only a drastic and immediate improvement, results and performance wise, will appease the City support.
And that improvement must come in defence first and foremost. On paper, it looks strong. But yesterday, they were anything but. If you concede seven goals at home, it doesn't matter how good you are in midfield and attack.
“I think we all know that if you give goals away like that then there is no chance of getting back into the game,” Holt continued.
“Obviously we are disappointed in the manner in which we went about it and more for everyone else who has come to the game and seen a performance like that.
“I actually thought we started off quite well to be fair but if you give cheap goals away at any level, you are not getting back into the game.
“We've got to learn that when we do concede, we've got to shut up shop a little bit for the next few minutes. But we were sloppy all over the park really.”
On top of the horror show on the pitch, yesterday's League One curtain-raiser also saw some nasty scenes from the terraces when two supporters raced onto the pitch to confront the City chief.
And even though you cannot condone such actions, I think it would be fair to say that it just summed up the frustrations of everybody inside Carrow Road ? apart from the travelling Essex boys obviously.
“You can understand why people are frustrated. They pay their money to come and watch and they get that. We've got to apologise for what happened today, that's fair enough. But hopefully when we come back into town in the next couple of weeks you'll see a different team.”
As soon as the dust settles, and it will take a while, the question is 'where do City go from here?' And with a long trip west on the horizon, the new Canary No 9 will be looking for a vastly improved showing from his pals in the backline.
“You start by not giving cheap goals away – we can't do that. As a team we weren't good on the ball and there are things you've got to learn from.
“But we can't roll over now and say 'that's the season finished'. The fans have the right to be disappointed but we know we're good enough and we've got a good enough squad. I'm sure in a few months time we'll be having different conversations.
“We've got to recover, it doesn't matter whether you've been beaten 1-0 or 7-1, we've been beaten by Colchester.
“Bouncing back on Tuesday in the League Cup is vital and we must put in a performance worthy of the club and worthy of the fans that will travel there.”
Tom Haylett
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