Norwich City: Are Borja Sainz and Josh Sargent next big duo?

Though the game is often simplified to great players and individual heroes, it's also been defined regularly by impressive duos, working together to become greater than the sum of their parts.

Take Son Heung-min and Harry Kane, for example, Rio Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic, or Chris Sutton and Alan Shearer. All of them worked in tandem to achieve things they never would have alone, creating entire eras based on their relationships at their respective clubs.

Norwich City are no different, and in their time have produced a variety of pairs adored by managers and fans alike, prompting comparisons with each other and compilations of their highlights as couples.

Most recently it was Teemu Pukki and Emi Buendia, comfortably the two star players in consecutive Championship title wins between 2018 and 2021. They took what likely would have been a fairly average side and made it a dominant one, enriching each other's careers in the process.

It's often wondered whether Pukki would have got close to the 88 goals he scored for the Canaries without Buendia's eye for a pass, and whether the Argentine's creative genius would have been recognised without his intelligent team-mate.

The sight of Buendia's inside-right pass being gobbled up by Pukki became a near-weekly occurrence by the end of their time together, and it's a partnership that's hard to top in the City popularity ratings.

Teemu Pukki (left) and Emi Buendia were the last adored duo at Carrow Road (Image: Paul Chesterton/Focus Images Ltd) Another couple that certainly challenges them, however, is the Paul Lambert-era combination of Grant Holt and Wes Hoolahan. Although it might not have been with the same possession-obsessed system, their double-act was similarly based on creativity and finishing.

Hoolahan could often be found laying off for Holt at the end of a mazy run or picking him out with a perfectly-weighted pass, and the iconic number nine rarely made a mistake when found in view of goal.

He may have scooped all of the player of the season awards when they played together, but he couldn't have done it without the Irish magician, whose 2017 Barry Butler Memorial Trophy felt partly like a belated recognition of his earlier achievements.

Grant Holt (left) and Wesley Hoolahan helped the Canaries to consecutive promotions (Image: Paul Chesterton/Focus Images Ltd)

Seven years before they spearheaded promotion to the Premier League, a different sort of duo did so under Nigel Worthington. His left side consisted of Adam Drury and Darren Huckerby, a wide department that few sides managed to contain.

A left-sided partnership out of the top draw - Adam Drury and Darren Huckerby (Image: Newsquest Library) Drury provided the solidity at the back that allowed his rapid team-mate to flourish, exploiting defences from struggling second-tier Wimbledon to Premiership champions Arsenal.

Like Pukki and Buendia, they failed to keep Norwich in the top flight. But fans have continued to adore them to this day, when they work as ambassadors for the club.

Darren Huckerby forged a formidable pair with Adam Drury (Image: PA)

That doesn't mean, though, that those supporters aren't on the look-out for the latest in a long line of legendary duos, and in Borja Sainz and Josh Sargent they might just have found it.

Huckerby himself described Sainz as "unbelievable" after a fine start to the season, while Sargent is performing in exactly the way any observer of last term expected.

Add to that the fact that four of the five assists between them this season have been for each other, and it's easy to see how they're both improving as a result of the partnership.

But, as has repeatedly been said of the Spaniard individually, consistency is the key to reaching the high bar set by the aforementioned players. None of them made it to the pantheon of City greats with three months of good form, and all were involved in promotions to the top table.

So the legacy of the Sainz and Sargent double act remains firmly in the balance, even if they have started the campaign very well indeed.