Down

Relegation is a bitter pill to swallow. It gnaws at you throughout the summer after it. All the “what-ifs” go round and round your head. Is it a blip and we’ll spend the next season on a glory filled march back up to promised land? Is it the just the first slip on a slide back to mediocrity?

Now, I started following Norwich in the 94/95 season so this is my fourth relegation and it stings as much as it ever did. I've been trying to cling on to the positives like:

We have a core group of talented players with manageable contracts.
We’re under no financial pressure to sell anybody.
Even fringe players like Luciano Becchio, Wes Hoolahan, David Fox and Andrew Surman are proven excellent Championship players.
We have some excellent young players who will find it easier to get first team football at this level.
The fans stuck with the club in League One so we can rely on strong support home and away despite the divisions between the supporters from the Hughton era.

We couldn’t really be much better prepared for the coming season.

If Chris Hughtons fear of respect for the opposition and predictable tactics dragged us down to the Championship then surely we just needed a talismanic managerial figure to galvanise the current squad, attract fresh hungry talent and unite the fractious fanbase who haven’t agreed on much for a while now. Fresh thinking was what’s needed, we don’t want the stench of relegation lingering in the air for long. Ideally we wanted somebody who’s been there and done it.

Malky Mackay was my first choice. He was promoted 3 times as a player (once with us), been a successful manager in and around this division with two clubs in difficult circumstances. Malky is a massively experienced manager who knows what’s needed for success, he’s looking for work and loves the club. He has been linked with every vacancy going but his history with us suggested we had an advantage and it seemed a no-brainer.

Instead we appointed Neil Adams.

Neil Adams joined the club originally as an average replacement for the excellent Ruel Fox. He can point to a league winners medal from his Everton days but played just 12 times in that season. He lacked pace but could take a great penalty. We got relegated after his first full season with us. He played on for 4 uneventful seasons in the first division where we never threatened to get promoted. He was never a terrace favourite. The term "Club Legend" is bandied about pretty loosely these days, I'd politely dispute him being considered one. His workmanlike wing work being overshadowed on the other flank by the spectacular Darren Eadie or Keith O’Neill.

After his retirement he became a popular version of Mark Lawrenson for the Norfolk area with his analysis on Radio Norfolk and was later also employed by the club as a part time youth coach. Glenn Roeder infamously declared that Adams ”will never manage a football club, (has) little idea of managing a football club…an ex-player who is now working for the media who will never manage anything better than an under-10 team, thinking he knows best”. He proved him wrong immediately by coaching the Under 14’s part time, it wasn't until 2011 that the club recruited him fulltime to work with the under 16’s and help Gary Holt out with the Under 18’s. When Holt left to manage Falkirk in April last year he left Adams to take over the final 4 games of that successful youth cup run.

Maybe I'm being unfair on him. I felt similarly angry/upset after we finally got rid of Bryan Hamilton only to be presented with his assistant Nigel Worthington as our new manager...and that worked out pretty brilliantly for a few years. Maybe this will be the same?

His appointment on an interim basis for those 5 games was a massive gamble that failed to pay off. The job was far too big for him. With 20 minutes left of a Chelsea match that we needed to win, he took our only striker off, which bolstered his CV and worked out quite nicely for him in the end but it relegated the club leaving the fans and Jose Mourinho scratching their heads.

Despite his managerial failure last season, his inexperience of coaching adults and the example of Bryan Gunn before him he's our manager now and we're obliged to support him. If it all goes wrong and he's ultimately not up to the job then the management selection criteria will need serious revision.

Neil Adams is our manager for the next 3 seasons as it stands.

He has to decide what to do with the various International footballers he wouldn't select in his initial 5 games like Bassong, Pilkington and Hoolahan.

Will the baffling signing of Becchio finally pay-off back in the Championship where he's a proven commodity?

Bryan Gunn signed Grant Holt and Michael Nelson (Just don't mention Michael Theoklitos, Owen Tudor-Jones or Simon Whaley), so who will Neil Adams attract to our club?

Which of our current players will hang around? Nathan Redmond, Jonny Howson, Russell Martin and John Ruddy have already suggested they are up for the fight but Robert Snodgrass, Martin Olsson and Gary Hooper would be fantastic to keep.

Will Ricky stay or go?

Who will the assistant manager be? Neil Adams had Steve Foley all lined up but the board vetoed this move so will Ian Culverhouse find his way back after his Villa sacking?

Neil Adams has identified a goalscorer as his primary playing target which should excite everybody associated with the club.

AND there will be a new kit announced soon....that's cause for celebration amongst everybody who got RVW on their shirt last season.

David McNally has a habit of getting things right: sacking Gunn, appointing Lambert, appointing Hughton (well it worked for a season, in fact if Hughton had won that West Brom game we'd all be applauding the Board for sticking with their man).
I trust David McNally, hopefully the logic of the managerial decision will become clearer over time...although the clubs constant social media posting every half hour trying to legitimise his appointment only weakens their position.
I really hope in 6 months time my concerns will look ridiculous.

OTBC

It's never a dull summer at Carrow Road....

OH and managers shouldn't really wear suits pitchside