Norwich City: PinkUn podcast on Canaries Championship upturn

CS: As weeks go at Carrow Road that was near perfect. After West Brom we spoke about needing to take steps in the right direction after those injury and suspension issues prior to the international break. But to get six points, to score 10 goals, to give your fan base that type of entertainment is more than most would have hoped for.

PD: Johannes said it himself. If they were able to back up what they did against West Brom and then Plymouth by beating Luton then, in his words, ‘We’re back’. That's probably the catch line for this podcast episode.

There's no doubt, Zak and his fellow Norwich fans will have left the ground in these past two home games feeling that was the Norwich side we saw dismantle Watford or Hull.

We know in the intervening period those injuries bit hard, Kenny McLean's absence as well, suspension wise, but the great thing is you've still got Josh Sargent to drop in, Marcellino Nunez only gets on towards the end at the weekend, Ashley Barnes and Onel Hernandez from the bench.

Because this is Norwich you always fear around the corner there will be another injury or two to a big player, but if they can keep most of the key ones fit and available then we have seen enough now in 18 league games to suggest this is a group of players under a head coach who can really be in the conversation for promotion. What that looks like, in terms of at the end of the season, time will tell.

But I think they can definitely be in that top six, top eight conversation, and from where we all started, before a ball was kicked, and certainly after that first afternoon away at Oxford and how poor that was, I think that underscores what a great job Johannes and his coaching team and players have done.

Ante Crnac has come to the party at Norwich City (Image: Paul Chesterton/Focus Images Ltd)

CS: Zak, I’m interested to hear from a fan perspective but if you were at the Bristol City game that was a tough watch.

Yet it actually felt like on that day and since fans have remained relatively patient, relatively upbeat, and with the knowledge that actually once players return the performances will tick back up. Is that fair?

ZN: I think that is. We were all in a good mood, flying high in the table, and suddenly you have that three game block where we don't win at all, and then there's another international break, and we're thinking, ‘Oh my word, this isn’t great’ although we knew the reasons why. I thought against Plymouth on Tuesday the atmosphere was relatively normal, quite average and then as the goals started flying in, it became a bit of a laugh and good fun.

But against Luton in that second half, once Onel Hernandez came on, you could sense that urgency on the pitch and the noise levels in the stadium. Those are the moments that we live for.

To score 10 goals at Carrow Road in a week, I think there was a statistic saying that hadn’t happened since 1951. So we're living history and you have to enjoy it.

Onel Hernandez and Borja Sainz combined to seal Norwich City's 4-2 win over Luton (Image: Paul Chesterton/Focus Images Ltd)

CS: Sam, let's get the bit that isn't so positive out of the way. And that is the goal concessions. I remember someone from Norwich City saying to me and Paddy in the summer that in this opening portion of season they're going to concede goals that make them look silly. None more so than Luton’s opener.

But the reward of that is probably the third home goal, where they build up nicely, Shane Duffy steps in, and it ends with an Emi Marcondes’ slot. This game of risk and reward. So where do you sit?

SS: I'm with you. And it was strange how that reaction worked in my mind when they did give that goal away. Because, instantly, obviously you see it in the way that they conceded it, and you think in your head, ‘Oh, that's outrageous. That's a terrible error’.

But then quite quickly, I actually thought, ‘No, that's exactly what we have been told’ in terms of how they want to build this style of play.

If they could have chosen for it to be in a game where they're going to score four goals, they probably would have done so. If you want to change the system from one that was a little bit old school under David Wagner, to be honest, to one that now is based a lot around not only trying to play out from the back, but trying to actually put yourself in a little bit of danger, so that you then have more space and better opportunities, that comes with the territory. It's so easy to jump on errors.

What people don't think about is the fact that a lot of the goals scored at the other end come from a similar place in terms of the build up structure.

For me, the mark of whether Norwich are improving will be on the ratios of goals to mistakes, because you probably can't say that there's ever going to be a season where this doesn't happen at least once, but maybe this season it happens 10 times, and then next season it happens five times, and then the season after that, it's only twice.