Ah well, it was fun while it lasted.
Except, of course, that for a long time it hasn’t been fun.
In fact, it’s been like a visit to the dentist – an analogy I’d better explain quickly, not least because your dentist is the last person you should annoy.
What I mean is that after a lengthy period as exciting as reading the periodicals in the waiting room, dreading that moment when you have to submit to what’s coming to you… it turns out that it’s not so painful after all.
There’s just a sort of numb feeling, which may give way to a bit of discomfort eventually, but it’s manageable.
There’s even a fair bit of relief that it’s all over.
Now this could be because I have at long last reached a level of maturity which allows me to view our situation with a greater sense of perspective. (Stop laughing at the back.)
Or, more likely, it’s a reflection of the season we’ve had: the joyless football we endured under Chris Hughton, plus the fact that we simply deserve to go down.
When we’ve been relegated in the past, I’ve tormented myself by constantly replaying key moments of the season in my head. If only the referee hadn’t given that penalty against us, if only so-and-so’s shot hadn’t hit the post…
There’s none of that this time. No despair, no bemoaning of luck or bad decisions, no anxiety about the prospect of particular players leaving and (unusually) no anger.
The closest I get to anger is exasperation: firstly, that all the hard work that got us into the Premier League has been tossed away; and secondly, that we’ve been such tossers in a season when there are so many poor teams.
Every year, Rick Waghorn writes a piece on this site wondering which club will prove to be the ‘basket case’ of the league. This year, there’s been a basketful of them.
Fulham have had their managerial merry-go-round; Cardiff and Hull both have owners infuriating their own fans; West Brom had the Nicolas Anelka incident, then hired a manager who has been rumoured to be on the point of being sacked ever since; Crystal Palace apparently bought a load of players off the internet last summer, only for the manager to declare he’d made a mess of it and wasn’t up to the job.
Sunderland started the season with someone we’ll politely call a ‘maverick’ in charge – and Gus Poyet has made reference more than once to there being ‘something not right’ at the club; Swansea had the distraction of the Europa League, alleged bust-ups on the training ground and their own managerial change; West Ham, who lacked a striker for the first half of the season, have supporters so disenchanted with their manager that they even boo when they win.
And of course we’ll always have Newcastle.
Despite all the failings of other teams, we still managed to get relegated. Some feat. Perhaps we’ve been the biggest basket case of all.
Yet despite this, I find it hard to criticise the board too much for their part, other than for their confident and repeated assurances that we would stay up. (Football being football, you simply can’t make promises like that.)
How can I criticise them for not sacking Hughton sooner when I couldn’t make my own mind up?
Yes, alarm bells had started ringing long ago. For me, the first occasion was at Wigan last season, when having ‘earned the right to play’ in the first sixty minutes, with the match there for the taking, the team remained imprisoned in its shape and attitude and held back – with predictable consequences.
But every time I got ready to jump down from the fence onto the ‘out’ side, we’d get another result. And for a brief period this February, it did appear that the team had finally started to work out how to make chances, even if they were duly missed.
The board gave Hughton every chance to sort it out. They gave him far longer than many other clubs would have done, and far longer than most City fans would have liked. But as faults go, trying to be patient and giving someone the opportunity to get it right is not the worst one to have. (The irony is, of course, that to the outside world the decision to fire him when they did looks like the result of panic rather than patience.)
Perhaps in delaying the decision they were just crossing their fingers and hoping for the best. But sometimes that’s all you can do. And sometimes it works. Barring the Sunderland ‘miracle’, it might have worked this time.
It’s the same with choosing a manager in the first place – which of course is the next item on the board’s to-do list. There are no guarantees; you can do all the background research and box-ticking you like on a candidate, but in the end any appointment is something of a gamble.
I have no clear view on who the manager should be, and it’s just as well I have no say in making the decision. After all, I once used this column to advocate the appointment of Aidy Boothroyd.
But whoever takes us into the next campaign, it has to be someone able to engender a real team spirit – the type of collective belief and determination which powered us upwards from League One and which has enabled Burnley to win promotion this year.
It’s this quality more than any other which brings success in the Championship. And it’s this quality, despite all the players’ pre-match high-fives and huddles, which we’ve lacked this season. (Neil Adams has clearly fostered an improvement in this department during his brief tenure, but then any new voice in the dressing room might have had the same effect.)
Creating that togetherness and confidence isn’t going to be easy after relegation, and with all the inevitable squad changes that will come this summer. And it’s for that reason that I’m not confident that we’ll be able to mount a strong challenge for promotion next year.
But I’m really looking forward to the new season and the prospect of a fresh start. If we can just get back to watching a Norwich team approaching every game with a positive attitude and giving it a real go, that will do for me.
And that will do for me for this season. See you in August.
This is exactly how I feel – nicely summed up. I’m actually quite excited that we are on the cusp of something new again.
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Thanks Kevin, numbed exasperation about fits it. I think all of us who supported the patience of the Board saw the signs, but hoped there would be change. This season, for me the first warning signs were right at the beginning back on the pre-seasons tour, when fresh from the excitement of a bunch of new signings we managed actually 0 goals against two MLS sides – and didn’t really look like we were interested in scoring them either, with no shape or spark in the mid-field.
Some people yelled strikers all season – I know Rick has been one. For me the problem has always been in the mid-field and our inability to control the ball and move it forward, with pace.
I think we nearly all agree that with the shoddy football on display, especially the second half of the season, that we do deserve to be relegated. And with the numbness, none of us yet have expectations yet for next season – would just like some youth, passion, enthusiasm and excitement from the side, with some good attacking intent, and that will do it for now. To have the fun back.
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‘Ah well, it was fun while it lasted.
Except, of course, that for a long time it hasn’t been fun.’
Sums up our premier league expedition perfectly.
Great article. Bring on next season.
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Agree completely, Kevin. I was one also who believed that the board was right to keep faith in Hughton and continuity. I, too, now have the benefit of fifty/fifty hindsight and can see i was wrong.
The dichotomy is this: we absolutely have to – and yearn to – be in the top flight of football. Anything else is simply unacceptable. For the last two seasons, the price that we have paid fir that is being subjected to (apparently) safety-first, turgid displays on the pitch that were totally depressing and not enjoyable in the slightest.
The board have to get the next managerial appointment right. They have to every time – they just don’t always succeed, much like any other appointment in industry or commerce.
If the do get it right, then we can look forward to a season of attacking, fluent football, along with – what’s it called again? Oh, yes: WINNING GAMES!!
So, hopefully, whilst we will be in the second tier and desperate to escape it at the first time of asking, we might actually have a season that we can finally ENJOY!
OTBC
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It’s a marathon, not a sprint.
Unfortunately, City seemed to “hit the wall” in game 2, away at Hull, and it has been a painful struggle ever since.
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One of the very best articles. Nothing to add
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Agree with this entirely, Kevin.
The other point worth adding is that we escaped last season only when Hughton released the players to play in that last couple of games. But for those last two games last season would’ve ended badly. The point is that under Chris H we’ve been on a downward track for 18 months.
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Thanks for an amusing, enjoyable piece which sums up our season of discontent admirably.
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Excellent article Kevin, brilliant summary of our season.
However, two moments among thousands that we could point to, one pivotal, one decisive.
The Snoddy/Ricky penalty against Villa. Ricky should have taken it, he was supposed to take it, why on earth did Snoddy? Pivotal.
Decisive? The home defeat against West Brom. Quite simple. That result did for both Hughton and us.
There are many things I will miss about the Premier League and my life will be so much better for it.
OTBC
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To Chris F (7) and others: PLEASE can we nail this myth that Norwich only survived last season because of the last two games. IT’S NOT TRUE. Check it out: we could have lost both and would still have stayed up.
Good points from others! OTBC
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Oh there are all sorts of little things we could think of that didn’t go our way.
Losing Elliot B for the whole season, forcing Redmond to play more than he was probably ready for.
Hooper’s early injury that left him playing catchup.
The Hull penalty they got, the very similar one we didn’t.
Not playing Sunderland under di Canio, Fulham under Jol or Palace under Holloway.
The battering of Cardiff, the goal that wasn’t and the tackle on Tettey that crocked him just as he was coming to his best.
That Palace lad who failed to see red for assaulting Wes.
Signing a classy loanee in Yobo, then losing him for too many key games.
The same may be true of Guitiwhatsit, but we saw even less of him to find out.
Sunderland playing Moyes, us getting Ryan on-a-crest-of-a-wave Giggs
Being on the receiving end of 3 of the top 12 saves of the season.
And so on. Trouble is that just about every club’s fans could come up with a similar list.
It is I think fair to say that at no stage did we have a particular piece of good fortune – a dodgy penalty, opponent sent off in error, or even a wicked deflection.
But then if you don’t get close to the opposition penalty area you can’t get a dodgy penalty can you? And that’s the bottom line for us. We were the weakest attacking team in the division and had too many “after you” moments in midfield. In too many games we just failed to turn up.
If you play like that you need a lot more luck than you are ever going to get.
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Thank you so much Kevin you’ve summarised my feelings so well I’m happily in the fifth stage of grief- acceptance, and season isn’t even over yet.
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Good perspective, Keith B (11).
In truth, not much to complain about with opposition managers. Sunderland just played Chelsea and Man U in the same period as we did (inc the Giggs effect) and beat them both. Actually these last four games haven’t turned out to be quite as formidable as we thought. We just haven’t been good enough to capitalise.
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Like Keith B., I think there were a number of things that could have gone our way but didn’t but in the end we didn’t score enough goals and conceded too many – that’s an equation that never balances. For a squad of our size, we had a lot of key injuries at key times especially in midfield where we never had a settled line-up.
Palace and Sunderland were forced into change at the top early due to the previous incumbents imploding and made sensible choices. Cardiff and Fulham (for very different reasons) shipped out solid, experienced managers and fatally replaced with idealistic but inexperienced replacements (in terms of PL). We were caught between a rock and a hard place..decided to stick (rightly in my view) but twisted too late (wrongly in my view).
West Brom panicked too early, picked a ringer to come in and got away with it by the skin of..
Positives? Two contenders for goal of the season (I know it’s not much) and Fulham coming down with us (although it means we’ll lose twice to them next season).
Let’s hope the Hammers don’t pip us to Malky’s signature.
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Good article Kevin.
Your reservation about the time needed to get the squad’s togetherness can be overcome quickly with the right manager.Gus Poyet is a case in point.
I agree with you that getting the next appointment right is crucial.
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Great article. Its missing a key term though: resignation. You get on the train, and in a few minutes realize that its going to derail in the end, theres a nick in the rail over a river just prior to the destination, so you get into whatsoever kind of emergency crash position you can, hide your face in your lap, and you emotionally prepare yourself to accept your demise–you’ve got time to get your thoughts in order. So, why the no frantic crazed looking back? Because we’ve been psychologically preparing ourselves for it for a while. We saw and just hoped beyond hope that our eyes were deceiving us and everything would turn out OK–that the rails were fine or the nick, if it is there, not big enough to send the train catapulting into the water.
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Excellent article – sums up my thoughts and feelings almost perfectly. The only difference is I know exactly who I think the manager should be – Malky.
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