After a disastrous attempt at Premier League survival in the 2021-22 season, Stuart Webber's second attempt at top flight recruitment was understandably written off by Norwich City supporters.

Out went Emi Buendia and in came Angus Gunn, Ozan Kabak, Brandon Williams, Mathias Normann, Billy Gilmour, Pierre Lees-Melou, Milot Rashica, Christos Tzolis and Josh Sargent.

That only two of that band of nine are in the Canaries' Championship squad today tells anyone that doesn't already know exactly what they must learn about the success of that heavy investment.

While it was designed to be the setup of a real tilt at the elusive top table stability City craved, it came to represent everything wrong with a drab and uninspiring campaign. The individuals associated with the window became figures of fun amongst fans, and many of their careers in Norfolk were written off.

But in Sargent Norwich saw a case that they didn't want to give up on, a signing whose reputation could still be rectified in East Anglia.

Why that was seemed unclear at the time. 

While his peers had been systematically moved on with haste - Lees-Melou quickly returned to France, the loanees to their parent clubs and Rashica and Tzolis on temporary transfers of their own - only Sargent and Gunn were kept around Dean Smith's first-team group.

The Pink Un: Sargent had a point to prove after a difficult first season at Carrow Road.Sargent had a point to prove after a difficult first season at Carrow Road. (Image: Paul Chesterton/Focus Images Ltd)

Perhaps that's because Webber, Smith and their relevant advisors saw the potential for the American to thrive in the Championship. The attributes were, after all, there for him to do so. He had the strength, athleticism and work rate, and at 22, plenty of time to grow.

Only the effects of a confidence-damaging season could hold him back, and to decide that was too much would be to give up on the goal of promotion, given the chastening effects of that relegation on their entire squad.

As it was, a run at centre-forward was all Sargent needed to reinstall that confidence.

His first strike of the season came in that role against Huddersfield Town, an unerring finish reassuring fans in the absence of main man Teemu Pukki. That form continued with a blistering double against Millwall three days later, before he tapped in the only goal of the game away at Sunderland.

That strike came from the right wing after Pukki's introduction as a substitute through the middle, and offered Smith a way to crowbar both men into his team. For Coventry's visit to Carrow Road, it was out to the right wing for Sargent.

The benefits of having both the number 24 and the Finn on the pitch were easy to understand, but few could argue this had a positive impact on the former's performances.

While his previous outings had commanded attention, his right-wing role cast him as a member of the entourage; a peripheral figure awkwardly thrust away from centre stage.

His goal and assist in that Sky Blues game was deceiving, but his anonymity in gruelling matches thereafter left Smith searching for answers.

He redeployed Sargent as part of a front two with Pukki for Preston North End's trip east, but that ended in defeat despite the 23-times-capped international's goal.

The pace with which he returned to a wide position - in the very next game - will have frustrated the former Werder Bremen man, but against the backdrop of last season's tribulations he would surely have taken the start to the term he's experienced.

Throw in a World Cup trip he was clearly thrilled by, and Sargent's expression is far more often a picture of happiness than the anguish collectively present in NR1 in recent years.

The drought he'd been developing before the tournament was ended in the final game before it and, despite a goalless international trip, that's the form City fans will hope he resumes as they return to Championship action.

Whether he can recapture his early form enough to carry City to the promotion they so desperately seek remains to be seen. Positive four-month spells rarely win awards. The task now is to confirm he can be a threat on a consistent basis. 

One thing's for sure - he's broken away from the prior perception of him. Any notion that he could be thrown into the same column as his fellow signings in that fateful summer can now be dismissed, and that will be a burden off the young man's shoulders.

What he does with that new-found freedom and confidence will likely decide the success of his career, at Carrow Road and elsewhere.