Stopping the Yo-Yo
The Canaries of Norwich City Football Club just simply cannot break through the glass ceiling in the Premiership. Norwich has not been in the top-flight of English football for back-to-back seasons since 2013-14. The loss to Aston Villa on April 30 sealed the deal for the Canaries, but their fate was decided long before that. From 97 points and an automatic bid to the top-flight from the Championship to just 22 points as Norwich allowed an astonishing 84 goals in 38 matches. After putting the work on the opposition in the Championship in 2020-21, one may have thought that the Canaries would figure out a way to find safety.
German manager Daniel Farke brought Norwich up twice from the second-tier but in mid-November after winning only one match for the first two months, former Aston Villa boss Dean Smith was announced as the new leader for the foreseeable future. Heading into another season in the second-tier, this see-saw club faces some hounding questions that have been looming over itself for quite some time. Did Daniel Farke have to go, and what is needed to elevate this club up a tier inside of England's top league? Both of these questions have very unclear answers. The most consecutive years that Norwich has been in the top-flight was just three about nine years ago when club legend Grant Holt was bagging goals at a constant rate before leaving for Wigan Athletic.
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Norwich was slightly out of the drop zone after beating Watford on the road in a contest that the Canaries fans and Josh Sargent will try to remember, despite the club heading back to the Championship. There were some bright spots here and there, but after a summer where it lost one of its most influential attackers, Norwich was essentially running in place ever since. Yet another year of back and forth football for the Canaries as they try to break out of the spell that seems insurmountable.
After the demoralizing loss to the villians that sealed relegation, manager Dean Smith spoke on the future, stating, "I think over the past four to five weeks, there's probably been an inevitability about it... I'm disappointed that we got relegated today because I thought our performance was good, but unfortunately over the season, the performances have not been good enough and we've lacked the quality required in this league... [The players] are very down, very dejected."
He continued, stating, "plans are already in place" to return to the top-flight as soon as next season. It would be no surprise to see this team make a return appearance to the Premiership a year after being relegated. Fulham just ran through the Championship with relative ease this past season and are returning to the Premier League next season. The Cottagers 106 goal season can be used as an outlier due to the fact that the Championship is no doubt one of the most difficult leagues out there.
Desperation describes a lot of the clubs like Swansea, Queens Park Rangers, and even Middlesbrough who were regulars in the Premier League before getting locked in a league that for some took years to climb the treacherous mountain. Ten months of hard work can be wiped away in the blink of an eye, one bad performance in the playoffs, and the idea of doing it all over again is daunting in itself.
Emi Buendía was one of the biggest reasons if not the reason why the Canaries managed to put together a season in the Championship that resulted in 97 points and 29 wins. His record sale to Aston Villa for $42.24 million created some room for the club to go on a little bit of a spending spree to sign some talent in order to finally keep them up.
The club went ahead and signed some players that create some capital for the future including Milot Rashica, Josh Sargent, and Christos Tzolis. It is paramount that the Canaries are smart with the money they spend during this upcoming summer window. The sales of some of its players to create some more capital like last summer is the way Norwich has to go about it. Its funding, budget, and transfer money are about to go down drastically with the move to the Championship. The Canaries' ability to spend intelligently the last time they got relegated resulted in one of the most successful seasons result-wise in the league.
With a whopping 22 players coming back from loan, the Canaries have to make some decisions about whether or not these players have the quality to make an impact in the club. Todd Cantwell was loaned to AFC Bournemouth and after a difficult season, the Cherries did not take up on the offer to buy the English midfielder. After falling out of favor, Cantwell and Norwich sealed the deal to move to Vitality Stadium for the rest of the season. Smith has reported that many players that have played in the Championship this past season like striker Jordan Hugill, winger Onel Hernández, and wingback Sam McCallum. Cantwell did not play the final four games of the season for Scott Parker's side and has not started a contest in any competition since early March.
The hope for the Canaries is that the drama of this past season with Cantwell during his career has done its course, and the 20-21 Cantwell is back and ready to help elevate his club back to the Premiership. To create some room to buy some reinforcements for next season's campaign, the club may be forced to sell its best player Max Aarons to a club in the Premier League. Manchester United is reportedly interested in the versatile wingback that played 90 minutes for Norwich in 28 out of the 38 match weeks in the league.
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With the departure of Brandon Williams, Billy Gilmour, and potentially Aarons, there needs to be a multitude of defensive reinforcements brought in both the midfield and the backline. Norwich is reportedly interested in 27-year-old Blackburn Rovers midfielder Joe Rothwell, but competition from clubs like promoted Fulham, Bournemouth, and even Rangers could prove the transfer to be unlikely. Rothwell is an experienced player who has the potential to play in the Premier League, and while he may have a little more progression to go, his performances in the Championship demonstrate his worthiness.
Norwich City's sporting director Stuart Webber stated that the club "does not have a lot of money" unless it sells some of its top players like Christos Tzolis. In order for Norwich to reach new heights, it may need to take a step back before it can move forward again. Reportedly more investment in the club via Mark Attanasio of the Milwaukee Brewers in the United States could help break the curse of this Canaries side. More money creates more options for the club as it has to have its eyes set on the horizon of what is in store for the club in the coming months or even years. There is no doubt that this squad has the talent to contend at the top of the Championship each season, but the problem has always been when it reaches the next level. Some may say this is the identity of a club like this, but with a manager like Dean Smith and a striker like Teemu Pukki, there is no reason they should be finishing last in the top flight.
Patching up the defense with some young talent in their academy or elsewhere could be the way to go heading into the future. Letting in goals at a consistent rate is the repeated problem at Norwich in the Premier League. 75 goals allowed in 19-20, and a whopping 84 goals allowed in 21-22, both were by far the worst in the league. The addition of Ben Gibson in 2021 was supposed to alleviate that, but the same old narrative continues to happen. Pukki, Adam Idah, and Milot Rashica showed plenty of promise this past season before Idah was ruled out for the rest of the season. With Idah back in the fold in the attack, Norwich has to have its eyes set on the Premier League once again, but the issue is not next season, it has been translating the success into something permanent in a league Norwich just can't seem to crack.
