Russell Martin will one day manage Norwich City.
That’s the view of former Canaries striker Cameron Jerome, who is playing under Martin at MK Dons.
Jerome, who scored 42 goals in 138 appearances for Norwich, has seen enough in his short time with the League One club to convince him that Martin can one day take the reins at Carrow Road.
“I think he will manage Norwich one day – 100 percent,” Jerome told the Talk Norwich City podcast. “I think he’s a perfect fit.
“Like any player that has a special rapport with an ex-club it’s always written in the stars. You’ve seen it with Frank Lampard (at Chelsea), you’ll see it with Steven Gerrard (at Liverpool) – it happens.
“He has just got to go and prove himself and reinvent himself as a manager. He has to earn that right first and I think he will be a top manager – he’s going one way – to the top!”
Jerome moved to MK Dons this summer following a spell in Turkey with Goztepe as the 34-year-old comes to the autumn of his career.
Norwich fans got to see Jerome in his prime with the striker earning his place in the club’s folklore for his goals in the play-off semi-final and play-off final at Wembley.
Jerome looks back on his time at Carrow Road favourably but admits regretting leaving the club for Derby in January 2018.
“The only regret I have is maybe leaving when I did - I shouldn’t have pursued the move to Derby perhaps as much as I did,” he said.
“I wanted to move back up north. I wanted to go back home – I spoke to the gaffer at Derby – Norwich wanted a lot of money for me at the time and the move never materialised (in the summer).
“Daniel (Farke) coming in changed things a bit – the club wanted to go a little bit younger and stuff, not that it was affecting me directly because I was still part of the squad when I was fit.
“I said to him to him it’s nothing to do with you – I like your style, I think it’s refreshing – I wish I had worked with him when I was younger.
“Derby came again in January and I went there when I had 18 months left at Norwich on a lot better money.”
Pipe down Boro
Cameron Jerome has revealed Norwich City’s play-off final victory over Middlesbrough tasted extra sweet due to the Canaries’ bus being pelted with missiles on the way to Wembley.
Jerome opened the scoring with a fine individual strike to set Norwich on their way to a 2-0 win over Boro with Nathan Redmond notching shortly after.
Jerome famously marked his goal with a ‘shush’ gesture towards the Middlesbrough fans after the Norwich bus had bottles and bricks thrown at it on the way to the ground. The ex-Birmingham striker thought Middlesbrough had been arrogant in the lead-up to the match after Aitor Karanka’s men had beaten the Canaries in both league battles that season.
“The celebration was because they were smashing our bus to pieces with bottles, bricks and throwing everything on our journey so I was like ‘pipe down now and have a bit of respect - we’re 1-0 up now and I’m not sure I’m going to hear you again’,” he told the Talk Norwich City podcast. “I felt like they (Middlesbrough) thought ‘we’ve beaten these twice... we just need to turn up and we will beat these again’.
“But it was special - you don’t realise it at the time.”
City went on to be relegated under Alex Neil in the Premier League and Jerome revealed the depth of ill-feeling within the squad at the start of the season when Bradley Johnson was sold to Derby for £6m.
“I was a bit angry that the club sold him,” he said. “Alex Neil explained the situation and why we sold him later. The club had no money – the (Premier League) money comes in instalments so the club didn’t have cash ready and available to strengthen the squad so they thought ‘we’ve got this bid for a player that represents good value’.
“It was a dagger blow. Brad had scored 16 goals from midfield and we sold him... who does that? Surely he deserved a chance to be a part of this as well. He was just as instrumental as anyone else.”
- You can listen to the full Talk Norwich City podcast here
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