Spud Thornhill: Let's give Norwich City's new boss time to sort it out

An example is strikers who don’t have good careers at Norwich, leave, and on their first return to Carrow Road score against us within two minutes.

Ex-Canary Chris Brown is one that stands out for me. He played for us for a year, from January 2007, scoring only once. He returned to Carrow Road with Preston the following November for the first time and scored with less two minutes on the clock.

Another unwritten rule is never believe what you hear about there being an injury crisis at our next opponents and that it should be an easy win for Norwich ... no, no, no.

My mind always goes back to February 2011, when Norwich were flying in the Championship under Paul Lambert and heading back to the Premier League. Norwich had a home game against Doncaster Rovers, who were trying to get the game called off as they didn’t think they could field a team because they had so many injuries and suspensions amongst their squad.

The Football League refused their request. An easy three points, I thought. But no - it was a 1-1 draw.

I got a message last Sunday from my Watford-supporting mate, Gary Parkins, who many Norwich fans know. He congratulated me on Norwich beating his Watford side - on the following day of course - as they had reported 14 players out with either injury or suspension.

I replied to him that I was too old in the tooth and had been following Norwich far too long to fall for that one. I carried on saying we were at a very low ebb and Watford could be playing us at the right time.

He was not listening to me and I was not listening to him either as we were both sure how things were going to pan out. Sadly, I was right. The Norwich City curse struck yet again. It was all too predictable on Monday.

One thing I noticed was our fitness. A long time ago we used to pride ourselves on our fitness. But not this season, for sure. We have looked so jaded the longer the games go on, which has been more evident in recent games. In five of our last six games we have conceded goals in the last 10 minutes including three winners in the last few minutes.

Let’s hope with David Wagner's appointment, this is something he will try and put right as soon as possible. This is one of many things that will need sorting.

This time I’m not going to make any judgment on the manager. I have been excited with past managerial appointments like Glenn Roeder, Chris Hughton and Dean Smith as they had managed some big clubs them before us, but we all know how they turned out at Carrow Road.

Mind you, I had never heard of either Alex Neil nor Daniel Farke and was underwhelmed and feared the worse - and, again, we know what they achieved.

So what do I know? Let’s just let him do his job - but we must be willing to be patient.

The new man will also need to reunite the fans with the club. It has been helped with the introduction of the drum and re-introduction of the flags. We can reunite and the enjoyment of football can return.

I have done some research - after the latest appointment we have had 18 permanent managerial appointments (including Mike Walker’s twice) in my 40 years following Norwich. This does include some who were caretaker managers before they became permanent.

David Stringer - Spud Thornhill's first Norwich City manager (Image: Newsquest)

Going back to my first managerial appointment - Dave Stringer in 1987 following Ken Brown’s departure - we have won 12 times in the manager's first game with just three defeats.

Hopefully tomorrow we can continue the trend and have another win in our first step on the road to Wembley. Before I starting dreaming, the new man will have a lot to sort out but if he can stop the rot we may just have a Wembley final in May.