Paul McVeigh

Norwich City’s relegation has led to despondency among fans, but the former player McVeigh sees plenty of positives.

The last thing Norwich City should do following their relegation, which was confirmed on Wednesday night, is dismiss their manager Alex Neil. He’s the silver lining to my former club’s relegation season, the one man they must keep hold of. Neil was the Premier League’s youngest manager and he’s been the driving force behind everything that Norwich have done well this season.

Unlike several of his players, he’s the one who has shown that he knows how to adapt to the Premier League after coming up from the championship. His biggest problem is that there are not been enough goals in his squad.

You might say that it’s the fault of the manager that he hasn’t got the squad scoring, that he must take ultimate responsibility for relegation. You might say too that while he had players who were outstanding in the championship but struggled in the Premier League then it’s his job to do something about it, but I don’t buy into the idea that sacking a manager always helps.

Norwich fans are disappointed this week. I understand that, especially after relegation.

Norwich beat Man United away; they had some really good wins yet they still went down. I’ve heard the criticisms of the club’s CEO David McNally too. He’s now left the club after a bizarre u-turn on Twitter when he said he was resigning, then not resigning. Fans say that Norwich didn’t spend enough on new players, didn’t bring enough players in. Norwich stayed loyal to the team who’d won promotion and by the end it showed.

One problem for Norwich and similar sized clubs is Leicester City. They’ve shown that the impossible is possible by breaking into the top four and winning the league. Fans of clubs who would never expect to win anything are now saying: ‘Why not us?’ It’s a hard one to answer. Leicester have blown the idea that there’s a huge gulf between the championship and the Premier League, but I still believe that there is a huge gulf, I still think that Leicester’s season was a freak, using players that have not been spectacular throughout their careers.

The gulf remains and I’ll give you an example. I watched Norwich at Arsenal. They played really well and had three good chances. They didn’t take them. It was similar against Manchester United last week. When Cameron Jerome and Mbokani had headers, neither went in. The killer instinct wasn’t there.

There were other strikers who’d been excellent in the Championship but not the Premier League. Patrick Bamford is a fantastic player and great finisher who destroyed opponents in the championship. He struggled to have an impact on games this season. Kyle Lafferty wasn’t really fancied by the manager and went on loan.

Norwich have scored 39 goals in 37 games, four of them in Tuesday’s 4-2 win against Watford. It’s not enough. Nathan Redmond, a midfielder, was the top scorer with six goals until this week when Mbokani scored two to become the seven goal top scorer. It’s not enough and a lack of goals is where the issue is.

Fans said that Norwich needed to spend big money on a proven centre forward. They did that with Ricky van Wolfswinkel when they were last up in 2013-14. He costs £8.5 million and scored one goal. It didn’t work out and Norwich went down a season after the highest ever finish for the promoted team. I sense there’s a feeling of once bitten twice shy. They watched with envy as Jermaine Defoe did so well for Sunderland.

Maybe Norwich just needed to stay up, like Leicester a year ago, then build on that, but I believe Norwich are in a really good position to come straight back up. The manager and players will be better for their year in the Premier League. They’ve had money from it too, plus Carrow Road remains full to 27,000 capacity every week, just as it did when Norwich were in the third division. The city is easily big enough to support an established Premier League team, there’s a big catchment area with little competition from other club. There’s a case for expanding Carrow Road, especially as a lot of Premier League clubs are expanding their capacities. The Canaries can’t be left behind, but expanding your ground after relegation isn’t going to happen.

Norwich is a stable club. It’s not on the slide like Bolton or Blackburn after their relegation. It’s really well run, the debts have been cleared and I expect them to come back like Burnley.

I’ve been at Norwich; I see how they take care of the small details. They need to get the new CEO sorted but Norwich is still a club with many positives and I believe they’re not far from being a West Brom or Stoke, an established Premier League team on crowds of 26,000.

There will be changes this summer and Norwich do need to address the issue of a centre forward, but there are at least five players they should definitely keep hold of. John Ruddy is a very good goalkeeper, despite his dip this season. Timm Klose the Swiss centre half, has made a real difference to Norwich. His absence to injury really hurt the team. Russell Martin is the club captain who has been there since I was there in League One. He got a bit of stick from the crowd this season but remains one of the best professionals I played with in my whole career. Jonny Howson has been outstanding all season long. Wes Hoolahan is another former teammate who should stay. He’ll be especially effective in the Championship.

Norwich fans need to keep the faith and keep Alex Neil. They’ll be back.