With just eight games to go, the prospect of promotion is rapidly transforming a romantic, abstract dream into something far more tangible.
Such is the distance this team of yellow and green heroes have travelled, overcoming nearly every obstacle the division has placed in their way and cementing a four-point lead at the Championship’s summit in South Yorkshire last weekend. As away days go, Rotherham was up there with the best.
The fans were united, relentlessly bellowing chants – old and new – and filling the New York Stadium an array of glorious, table-topping decibels. The colour and flags were out in force, creating the ‘yellow wall’ that has become such a marked feature of City’s season, both at home and away.
And the players, once again, were never going to let us down.
Without wanting to sound like the divisive Jake Humphrey, I do struggle to see any way these players are not going to take us over the line. Granted, it’s going to be a nervy, seemingly eternal run-in that may well go down to the wire, but our record of losing just two games since August suggests nothing other than that we really are the superior side in this division.
City’s rise has been well-documented. The fact that our recent starting XI cost us a mere £4.73 million – as tweeted by Kristan Reed (below) after the Rotherham game – remains nothing short of startling, a figure that only serves to underline the genius of Stuart Webber and Daniel Farke.
Current #ncfc starting 11 cost £4.73m
Krul- free- 30
Aarons – youth – 19
Zimmerman – free – 26
Godfrey – £90k – 21
Lewis – youth – 21
Trybull – free -26
McLean – £203k – 27
Hernandez – £2.25m – 26
Buendia – £1m – 22
Pukki – free-28
Steiperman – £1.2m-28
Av age – 24.9— Kristan Reed (@kristanreed) March 17, 2019
But if – and not yet when, unfortunately – we do go up, what happens next?
As Gary alluded to in his piece last Sunday, considerable bids for the likes of Max Aarons, Ben Godfrey, Jamal Lewis, Emi Buendia and co are inevitable. What is important is that the club resists the temptation to sell and instead maintains the core of this group that has brought such unity and joyous youthful spirit to Championship grounds across the country this season.
Many of my non-City supporting mates – of which there are many – have reluctantly acknowledged our brilliance this season. Such a trend has been a welcome change from their usual dismissal of our ‘irrelevance’ and inability to ever cut it among the big boys. However, if we do go up, their views are still characterised by that ‘you’ll either go straight back down or somehow come 17th’ sort of mentality.
But why should we?
If there’s one thing we’ve learned this season, it’s that Webber and Farke are deserving of our total and absolute trust. Together, they have assembled a young, buoyant squad on the cheap that has defied all the odds and may well win the division. And all that in an age of foreign riches and unedifying footballing rapacity.
Why shouldn’t we be able to stabilise in the Premier League? Why shouldn’t we be able to do a Watford, a Bournemouth, a Wolves or a Brighton? Bar a few anomalies – Marcel Franke, Marley Watkins and James Husband the most conspicuous examples – Webber’s judgement since his tenure begun has not been far off flawless.
Of course, he’ll have a reservoir of foreign names at the ready, a list of players who he believes can improve this already-brilliant squad he’s constructed. However, there is no need for radical change.
Call me the arch-optimist, but I genuinely believe that at least half of our current starting XI – and a few on the bench, too – could cut it in the top flight.
Cast your mind back to those games last season at The Emirates and Stamford Bridge, contests where City more than held their own and at times looked remarkably comfortable when faced with top class opposition. As many fans have alluded to, Farke’s footballing philosophy may even be more conducive to Premier League football.
And this isn’t merely a case of looking at things through the most yellow and green-tinted spectacles. What’s the point in supporting a football team if you don’t dream, don’t find a way of believing that they are capable of achieving something special over a long-term period?
To use the words of our baffling, intransigent (soon to be ex – Ed) Prime Minister this week – and contrary to how some fans approach supporting City – I’m on your side, Norwich.
All of this may just be speculation, though. We may not do it this season, an outcome that would probably leave a series of irreparable wounds and be acutely detrimental to the club going forward in so many ways.
However, I just don’t see that happening.
So why not dare to dream? Let’s not just go up, but let’s stay there, creating a legacy that those of us who’ve followed City for so many years can be proud of. There is so much to look forward to. If Webber and Farke can do what they’ve done this year, there’s no reason they won’t be able to achieve something spectacular again in the top flight.
Let’s get there first, of course, but the way this club is going, anything is possible.
OTBC
Abso- dam-lutely the style we play as you rightly say is more premiership than championship, I just hope we don’t have to sell to fund any new arrivals, but clearing a few off the pay roll will always help. Husband, Pinto, Wildscut, Naismith, McGovern Franke, Oliveria and Srbeny , does trim down and must save a few bob. Not enough to raise a transfer fee but will make more room.
I cannot see why we cannot have an extended run up at the top table, not ending like Fulham or Huddersfield the latter’s model we are very close to. Lessons can be learned from looking at the clubs who have fell through the trap-door in recent season. Stoke went to master destroyer Mark Hughes, WBA went for Pulis whose football is past it’s sell by date, Fulham simply changed far too much, and Huddersfield perhap Wagner had no plan B & C , not sure on that there are the total reasons, but sure played a part in the downfall. Brighton will always puzzle me, when Here Hughton did not have much of an attacking ideas nowhere near enough to do what he is doing, mind they do rely on a 36 old striker.
Webber & Farke are canny and know 100% more than I do, to coin a phrase from a very old Sit Com “I know Nothin” I trust (for one of the first times) who has the wheel on ship Canary
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Good points. Don’t forget Matt Jarvis (for whom I have a lot of sympathy) will also be off the payroll come July.
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absolutely, I had missed him. if player deserves a break it is him. we can only guess what he has been through mentally still a worthwhile championship player for someone.
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Bravo Will! Couldn’t agree more. Ignore the naysayers, when promoted we’ll surprise quite a few, including the usually dismissive MOTD dinosaurs.
OTBC
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Good stuff, Will.
Stuart Webber’s made clear that if we go up, we’ll approach the Premier League positively. It’ll inevitably lead to some tonkings along the way, but he believes it’s the right approach – so do I. So did Alex Neil until the fateful day of 18 October 2015, when we lost 6-2 at Newcastle and his nerve failed. I don’t think Stuart’s will.
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A hearty Amen to all of that.
Now Mr Neil, I think we’d appreciate two particular home wins from your PNE boys. It’s very much in your interests after all.
I wonder which matches I might be referring to?
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Totally agree Will.
Although many of us would accept a finish of 17th in the Premier League next season, somehow I don’t think Messrs Webber and Farke will.
Looking at our current squad, there are not too many who could not perform in the Prem, and with a few tweaks, and freeing up of some pretty big salaries, I’m sure Mr Webber and his scouting army already have the next Emi Buendia in their sights.
O T B C
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Hi John
When it comes to freeing up of salaries the massive Neil-inflicted carbuncle that was Naismith has effectively gone, McGovern will be on his way at the end of this season and Ivo Pinto (utterly blameless imo) too.
That surely only leaves Oliveira as the last lead weight around our neck – he has a further year to run on his contract I believe and if we got any more than Monty Python’s kiss on the butt and a packet of wine gums for him I’d be amazed. Loan him out for the final year of said contract if we cannot permanently offload him. .
Wildschut has disappeared from the NR1 radar and I don’t know his contract details so I can only hope it’s up at the end of the season.
Yes the current crop could indeed cut it in the PL. As Chelsea and Arsenal discovered.
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Poor Alex Neil, probably the single most profitable manager for Norwich City by a country mile, still getting thwacked for Naismith.
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Sorry David but that is the one AN signing I cannot forgive.
I should (like the rest of us) forget all about it but I’d need to see a hypnotherapist first in order to calm my nerves. No way would SW & DF make that kind of mistake.
And they wouldn’t purchase Yanic Wildschut either, come to that.
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They’ve signed some stonkingly good players, that’s for sure.
But let’s not forget…
Russ Martin extension
Raggett
Marshall
Watkins
Husband
Franke
All seem to have been purchased and then not used.
Then there are others, who to be fair may be part of a plan, or just surplus to requirements…
Passlack
Srebny
Here’s my argument for Alex Neil…
He got us promoted with limited/no signings, leading to a season of PL money and two lots of parachute payments. His spending was relatively limited and where he did splash almost all of the signings have since turned a huge profit. Including a host of record transfers (Maddison, Brady, Pritchard, and one day Godfrey). He managed to do good deals to sell players he’d inherited (Redmond, Ollson, RVW). Finally, a number of his signings were value enough to play a couple of seasons for us.
Yet he’s remembered largely for Naismith, a player most fans were happy to sign.
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Promotion would give us a chance to keep the promising youngsters and build around them. We have a couple of positions where we will add to the squad as a natural development and if we do that well then we have every chance of staying up with a degree of comfort
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If you don’t dream then sport is irrelevant.
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If we do get promoted it is obvious to say staying there will be very difficult, but as Wolves have shown play adventurous football and it can be done. And with Webber and Farke at the club I really do think its achievable.
Alex Neil has changed my opinion of the job he did here. His signings in that ill-fated January transfer window were nothing short of catastrophic, but were they his ? I always felt he was too smug for his own good, but to be fair he has admitted big mistakes while at this great football club and his attitude towards us was a far cry from Mr Lambert’s unbelievable antics (Ipswich supporters as good as Real Madrids, picking fights with the wrong people etc)
Alex Neil made another massive mistake, we had got relegated 2 years earlier with Bassong and Martin at centre half conceding on average 2 goals a game, whatever made him think they had improved in those 2 years ? Bennett should have played and Klose came to late.
At the time quite a few supporters were unhappy at a man seemingly learning his trade here, and I think in retrospect that was true. He has though got Preston to the brink of the play offs, a miracle really because I thought they were absolutely awful when they came here early in the season.
Looking back I think he knows he made big mistakes and credit to him for admitting it.
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