Today's "The Journeyman" article in The Times from yesterday's match.....

THE JOURNEYMAN
Troubled times at Carrow Road but Neil hopes new year brings change in fortunes
Gregor Robertson visits Norwich City

Gregor Robertson
January 3 2017, 12:01am,
The Times

It would be safe to say that Norwich City, and manager Alex Neil, will be mightily happy to see the back of 2016. This time last year a 1-0 win over Southampton lifted them to 14th in the Premier League and raised expectations of an extended stay in the top flight. Their subsequent collapse, relegation, and recent run of eight defeats in 12 games meant that 12 months on, before the visit of Derby County yesterday, there was firm belief that the new year should herald the arrival of a new manager at Carrow Road.

A wonderful hat-trick from Nelson Oliveira, their Portuguese striker, in a deserved 3-0 victory for the Canaries will have gone some way to appeasing supporters dismayed that Neil survived a run in which they plummeted from top of the Championship in late September to 12th before yesterday’s game. In the end there were olés reverberating around Carrow Road, such was their dominance, but there remains a sense that nothing less than a charge to the upper echelons of the table will suffice. Expectations are high.

In truth, the atmosphere at Carrow Road had become increasingly poisonous, which was evident at the beginning of yesterday’s game. A petition for the termination of Neil’s contract was even set up and 93 per cent of an online poll on a Norwich website, pinkun.com, voted in favour of their manager being shown the door. Supporters have questioned the wisdom of owners Delia Smith and Michael Wynn-Jones — and chief executive Jez Moxey, who arrived at the club in June.

In response, Moxey addressed supporters last week via the club’s in-house TV channel, acknowledging that results must improve quickly, but backing Neil as the man to deliver them. Suspicions were raised, however, when reports emerged of a quietly agreed new contract for Neil in the summer, the terms of which mean it would cost the club £2 million to part company with him — twice the 35-year-old Scot’s annual salary. Neil refused to be drawn on the matter, stating only that his earnings dropped after relegation, as was the case with everyone else at the club.

The level of discord was such that the Canaries Trust also released a statement last week, which spoke of a “strength of feeling such as has not been seen at the club for many years . . . fans who feel that they are being taken for granted and left in the dark due to a lack of any meaningful communication from the club, at a time when a squad generally regarded as one of the strongest in the Championship is lurching from defeat to defeat under a manager who appears to have lost any sense of direction.”

It has, of course, been 20 years since Smith and Wynn-Jones, her husband, joined the Norwich board and it would seem that an interview in The Times, marking the occasion in November, went down like a lead balloon in these parts. In the wide-ranging interview, Smith’s assertion that her dream is to have a manager in place “for ten years”, while wishing she could “go out on the pitch and say, ‘Shall we sack the manager or not? Hands up!’ ”, did leave fans bewildered.

In addition, their claim that they will never sell their shares in the club, which they plan to pass on to their nephew, Tom Smith, a director, also riled some who question their ambition and financial muscle, while at the same time witnessing huge overseas investment in Championship rivals and in the Premier League.

There is a temptation, perhaps, to point out that the grass is not always greener: visits to clubs such as Coventry City, Charlton Athletic and Birmingham City in recent weeks tell me that those supporters would love nothing more than a reliable — tangible, even — owner with local roots and an appreciation of what a club mean to their community.

Norwich did begin the new year in more positive spirits, although the ironic cheers that greeted the announcement in the starting XI of Wes Hoolahan was a precursor for a hostile opening to proceedings — his recent omissions from the side have left Canaries fans perplexed.

Wayward passes encouraged the crowd to vent their displeasure, but the Norwich players were settled when Oliveira’s low left-footed drive nestled in the bottom corner after 15 minutes. Chants of “How s*** must you be, we’re winning 1-0” suggested the home support’s confidence remained slight.

However, from the moment Derby’s Jacob Butterfield was shown red in the 66th minute for a tackle on Hoolahan the result was never in doubt. Oliveira headed a second in the 77th minute and, two minutes later, drilled home a well-struck volley from the edge of the area for his, and Norwich’s, third.

“As soon as the first groan came from the first misplaced pass, you could sense the lads tighten up,” Neil said. “The animosity leading up to the game, you could tell in the first ten minutes if it wasn’t going to go our way then the fans were going to quickly turn. Two months ago I was manager of the month. Two months later everybody’s after me. Football changes really quickly . . . we’re ninth in the table, five points off the play-offs, and there’s still half a season to go. So there’s certainly a lot for us to play for yet.”

In a nutshell

Nickname: The Canaries. 16th century Flemish weavers arrived with canaries and rearing them became a hobby

Club crest: A canary perched on a football alongside the city’s coat of arms

Ground/Capacity: Carrow Road, 27,150

Price of a programme: OTBC (On The Ball, City), 106 pages, £3.50

Ticket prices: Adult: £20-£45, 65+: £10-£30, Under-18: £5-£25, Under-12: £1-£17

Price of a pie: £3

Price of a pint: 500ml bottle, £4

Weirdest thing in the club shop: Yellow and green dart board, £36

Mascots: Captain Canary and Sportasaurus

One for the future: Winger and academy product Jacob Murphy, 21, is linked with a move to the Premier League this month

Record signing: Paid Everton around £9 million for Steven Naismith last January — though the fee was officially undisclosed

Highest league finish: Third in the Premier League, 1993

Moment in history: The 2-1 win away to Bayern Munich in the 1993 Uefa Cup second round

Greatest player: World Cup-winner Martin Peters made over 200 appearances between 1975 and 1980

Celebrity fan:Delia Smith

Posted By: JD3, Jan 3, 13:07:52