Premier League relegation pain will be used as motivation by Max Aarons as he aims to avoid experiencing that misery with Norwich City again.
The right-back has started all but one of the Canaries’ top flight games since promotion but endured a difficult evening against champions Manchester City last weekend.
He was replaced by Sam Byram in the 63rd minute of that 4-0 home defeat, after a lapse in concentration contributed to Raheem Sterling opening the scoring, with the England star starting to come out on top of their personal battle.
Ahead of the survival scrappers’ tough trip to Liverpool on Saturday, Aarons has spoken about how hard he found relegation in 2020.
“I have an obsessive mind,” he said. “When my heart is fully in something I can't switch off. I am working on that.
“I watch the games that are on TV that night or I watch my own games back.
“My girlfriend always asks me ‘how are you going home and just watching football? Does it ever stop?’.
“I think maybe the answer is no. But I remember how it felt when we went down two seasons ago.
“It was awful, really horrible. I want to make sure that doesn't happen again.”
City were relegated with three games still to play of 2019-20, finishing bottom on just 21 points, 14 adrift of the last survival position – secured by Dean Smith’s Aston Villa time by a draw at West Ham on the final day.
It was the club’s worst top-flight season but Daniel Farke brought them straight back as champions again.
Currently, the Canaries are on the same points (17) as they were after 24 games of that miserable campaign. However, when Farke was dismissed in February there were just five on the board, with 12 achieved in Smith’s 13 games in charge.
City are four points from safety ahead of this weekend’s action, having dropped back to 18th thanks to Newcastle’s resurgent form, but the five teams around them all have games in hand.
Wins over Everton and Watford sparked fresh hope last month and with home games against Newcastle, Burnley and Brentford still to come, as well as trips to Southampton, Leeds and Aston Villa, Aarons still believes survival will be secured.
“I think we have grown used to people writing us off,” he said, in an in-depth interview with the Daily Mail.
“People look at Norwich from outside and believe we will just go down again.
“But it's not like that. This team has too much quality and the fans deserve more.
“When we were on a losing streak earlier in the season, we didn't get too low. Now that we have recovered a bit, everyone has confidence.
“There are 14 games left and as long as we don't react too badly to the down periods, I believe we will stay up.”
Aarons surpassed 150 games for City last month and has entered the club’s all-time top 100 appearance makers.
He spoke about his decision to leave Luton Town as a 14-year-old to work with a specialist skills coach, spending time training with clubs including Tottenham, Chelsea and Manchester United.
After joining Norwich at 16, he proved his doubters wrong by making it as a professional, earning 15 caps for the England Under-21s so far.
The 22-year-old returned to his former school in Milton Keynes to speak to students about his journey earlier this week and also reflected on the change from Farke to Smith three months ago.
“It was really hard mentally around the time Daniel left,” he added. “We had been there two years ago and gone down and you do start getting a few visions of that season and it was really hard to cope with.
“And then Daniel left and that was just really sad. On that day, after the Brentford game, I spoke to him. He told me he loved working with me from day one. It was an emotional conversation as I am just so grateful to him.
“From that point, to have a new manager come in with the class Dean has got was amazing and an inspiration.
“We have improved a bit and played in a slightly different way. Maybe we are a bit more cautious, a bit more secure.
“We have had a couple of wins and some draws and, from here, we need to beat the teams around us and try to get some good results against bigger teams.”
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