When you look back over the successful Norwich teams of previous years, we have always featured several strong characters. Men who will stand up and lead the fight when the battle seems to be almost lost.
Think of Lambert’s double-promotion winners and Holt, Nelson, Whitbread, Martin, Howson, Crofts, Ward and Drury. All captains of their clubs before even arriving in Norfolk.
Or Worthington’s Championship winning squad with Drury, Holt (the ginger one), Mackay, Fleming, Huckerby, McKenzie, McVeigh, Green, Edworthy, and Mulryne. Big characters gelling together with a confidence and swagger that wasn’t to be denied.
One of the major criticisms of the Alex Neil era was that we had no leaders in the team. Russell Martin, for all his many admirable qualities as a club captain was undermined by inconsistent performances on the pitch, which made his own selection difficult to justify at times.
An ever-changing carousel of centre-backs who should have been leaders but never quite made it were fielded alongside Martin, with former skipper Seb Bassong, former Grimsby and Peterborough captain Ryan Bennett, and the at-times dominant, at-times dominated Timm Klose. Cameron Jerome, whilst mentally strong as an individual, was no Grant Holt in his ability to galvanise a forward line and lead the charge from the front.
And so, with a squad that should have thrived in the Championship we drifted, hammering some teams, but inexplicably struggling against others, and generally appearing lackadaisical in the face of any adversity. Coming back to 4-4 in injury time against Liverpool at home only to throw away the points in the dying seconds with poor defending was probably the pinnacle of the “soft-underbelly” that Neil struggled to eradicate during his tenure.
It’s difficult to imagine that happening to Mackay and Fleming, or Lambert’s squad of natural leaders.
When Stuart Webber and Daniel Farke took the reins last summer, one of the underlying tenets of the rebuild was to create a winning mentality within the squad. Fast forward half-a-season and with Howson, Bassong, Ruddy, Bennett, Mulumbu, Lafferty and Jerome all departed, and Martin and Naismith loaned out, a lot of experience, personality, and big characters have left the building.
In their stead have come players new to this league, and mostly new to this country. We brought in a 21-year-old loanee goalkeeper who had never played senior football to replace John Ruddy. A centre-back on a free from the German fourth-tier who appeared to be here to make up the squad numbers because he’d played for Daniel Farke before, and who seemed to be as surprised to be here as we were to have him. A journeyman midfielder in Tom Trybull who had bounced around the German and Dutch leagues without ever realising some early promise or finding a home, and on whom we only initially risked a one-year contract.
And yet slowly, and surely, it is working.
From the ashes of Neil’s squad of talented, brittle underachievers, a steely, determined group has emerged from unlikely sources.
Gunn is marshalling his defence like a veteran. Ivo Pinto, seen by many as an Instagram pretty-boy and a character of more style than substance, has responded to the opportunity afforded to him by Farke and become an unlikely leader in the dressing room.
Hanley, our one major signing of intent, has been the leader and rock we hoped he would be when we pushed the boat out to sign him in August, post-Millwall and Zimmermann looks increasingly confident and dominant at the back, and another captain-in-waiting.
Farke also tasked Klose with taking on more responsibility as a senior pro and he has stepped up to the mark this season, guiding Zimmermann and Lewis at times, and Tettey has produced possibly his best season for the club as his career at Carrow Road winds down, and has helped the defence with a series of mature, understated performances. As a result, he’s been another to wear the armband on occasions.
Leitner, after only a few games, looks to be the gaffer in the middle of the park, orchestrating the play, telling the others where to go. Even Maddison, at his tender age, has stepped up and become a focal point of the attack as his confidence has enthused those around him.
When we need to fight now, we fight. Last minute comebacks against Ipswich and Wolves are obvious signs of a team that never gives up and has confidence in its abilities, but equally impressive has been our ability to go away and pick up points in difficult atmospheres. A win against Chris Wilder’s perma-rage Sheffield United was one that you’d have struggled to see Alex Neil’s side eke out. A draw at Stamford Bridge? Definitely not.
There is a lot of talk around at the moment about a “togetherness” at the club, which I understand in the wake of recent results, but which I don’t quite buy at this moment in time. We are still only one defeat away from a lot of people making a huge collective mess of their sleeping implement.
But one thing that has happened is that we’ve built a squad that the fans like. I’ve yet to hear anybody who doesn’t rate Gunn, Lewis, Zimmermann, Hanley, Trybull, Maddison or Leitner. Klose and Pinto, whilst not everyone’s cup of tea, are hugely likeable characters that even if you remain unconvinced of their effectiveness at all times, you still root for them because they get the vision of Norwich we are building, and they buy into it.
More importantly than the fans simply liking the players though, they’re starting to trust them, individually and collectively. While we may be struggling to open up teams and score goals, equally I don’t see this team folding and taking a spanking from anyone, and that confidence in our collective strength is something that now feels very real within both the team and the supporters.
There is a resolve and a belief that we haven’t had for a long time. And for a first season from Webber and Farke, that’s a quietly-impressive achievement.
A very good and interesting article. I like it a lot. Of those players who have departed,
I think Howson is the only one that we miss. We could do with his energy and ability to get forward quickly.
An excellent article Andy and I’m sure that the majority of fans are VERY impressed with the way in which Zimmerman has adapted to the rigours of the Championship and has formed a formidable triumvirate with Hanley and Klose.
This was ALWAYS going to be a difficult season for the team as it went through its metamorphosis from ‘ugly duckling to swan’ and I still feel that the completion of the transformation is a few weeks/months away and here’s hoping it’s complete by the time Fulham play here on Good Friday and we can avenge our defeat by Villa early in the season and I’d love to see more of our ‘shots on target’ actually ending up in the back of the net. As DF said in his post-match comments, we COULD have been 3 or 4 up by half time against Bolton and I really feel that one of our opponents are going to suffer a significant defeat, rather than by an odd goal.
Whilst our meagre haul of 4 points out of 12 for our last 4 games was disappointing, it now means we have lost 1 game in 10, but have only amassed 17 points, whereas Villa have amassed 25 over the same number of games and I hope we are closer to their total next season than ours.
My only complaint re Farke, is that he invariably leaves his substitutions too late to have any real impact.
Agree with some of what you say but we are struggling to score goals and sit mid table,something is wrong somewhere and it needs sorting and if Farke can’t do it by May then i think someone else should be given a go next season.We have good players and definately should not be sitting 14 th in the table.
Sorry @Tony, but if you look at the stats from each game, we are creating a good number of attempts at goal, with a fair number of the shots actually being on target and with just a bit more accuracy/luck, we could have had a decent lead by half time on Saturday against Bolton.
Farke has really got our defence pretty solid (something that has been lacking for some 6 or 7 seasons now) and I’m confident he can have us scoring more than 1 or 2 goals per game in the very near future.
Come on tony. You can’t put out obvious facts, that’s just silly. Norwich fans like to believe the non truths that they have conjured instead of seeing what is in front of them and then call you a troll for highlighting it while they simultaneously weep tears of education.
The team has gone backwards and, although patience was a fair demand, there are no signs of improvement. The football will get even worse (if That’s even possible) and then city fans will claim they occupy the morale high ground for giving someone time instead of doing what successful clubs do (not hold onto managers way past their expiry).
I think we can say with fairness, Jeff, that if you’d been a Man Utd fan in the first 18 months of Sir Alex’s reign, you’d have demanded his sacking and slagged off anyone who argued differently.
Good article Andy. The supporters will forgive a lack of technical skill if the players and team give 100 %. Something the front end of the team would do well to take on board
A very good read Andy.
I could chuck in a few more like Mark Bowen, Jon Newsome and (on the pitch, not as a manager) Gary Megson.
Bowen (nicknamed Albert as in Corrie’s Tatlock, as both were known for their moaning) was allegedly pretty much the dressing room’s unofficial shop steward and barrack-room lawyer. Just one of the reasons he is my all-time NCFC player!