BBC pundits Chris Sutton and Ian Wright have hailed the style with which Norwich City have moved to the verge of a Premier League return.
Canaries legend Sutton – who scored 43 goals in 126 games for his hometown club between 1991 and 1994 before being sold to Blackburn for £5million, which was a British record fee at the time – is confident promotion is already sealed.
Mathematically the Championship leaders still need a point from one of their two remaining games to ensure third placed Leeds can’t catch them, but with a superior goal difference the six-point gap is already looking insurmountable for the Whites.
“I have been shocked in a pleasant way with Norwich City this season, I think their brand of football has been absolutely incredible, I really, really do,” Sutton said as City’s season was discussed on BBC Radio Five Live.
“They have got up playing a brilliant, exciting, attacking brand of football with good players and what they’ve gone back to is the days when i was there and they were developing from within.
“The likes of Max Aarons, Jamal Lewis, two young players who have come up through the academy and they sold their best player, James Maddison, who’s had a terrific season at Leicester, and then you’re thinking ‘where are you going to get your goals from?’.
“And yet they have recruited superbly under Daniel Farke and Stuart Webber, he is running the club. The likes of Stiepermann who have come in, Buendia who they found in the Spanish second tier at a club owned by Leeds, who had first shout on him and Norwich ended up pinching him – he has been a revelation.
“Teemu Pukki, a player at Celtic who really, really struggled, a sensational buy. I remember telling the local radio guy up there it’s a nightmare of a buy – and he’s scored 28 goals this season!
“The way they are playing, on the eye, they deserve promotion. I think the interesting question is – and a lot of Norwich fans will be thinking about this – what do they do in the summer, in terms of next season?
“Can they play this brand of football and go toe to toe in the Premier League as they have done in the Championship?”
Arsenal legend Wright has also been impressed with the work of sporting director Webber in dealing with the financial situation he inherited in April 2017 after the club had dropped out of the Premier League in 2016 with huge financial challenges, slicing the club’s wage bill ahead of parachute payments ending last season.
“Can you imagine what he had to do in terms of wages and business acumen? Then the renovation of the training ground, so they’re doing everything right,” Wright continued.
“The way he plays, Farke, it’s not like German high octane stuff, it’s really good, nice, precise, quality football and I think they’re not going to go a million miles away from that.
“I don’t see Norwich as going to do a Fulham or a Wolves and start splashing money all over the place because their recruitment has been key.”
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