Dean Smith has never been relegated as a coach and he has no intention of starting now at Norwich City.

Smith delivered a bullish opening gambit on Wednesday, at his official unveiling, with a simple message for those who have consigned the Canaries to the Premier League scrapheap.

“There are people who have written us off already,” he said. “My daily way of getting better is trying to prove people wrong, and not just because I lost my job last week. This is the next part of my journey.

"My first season I took over at Walsall and we were eight points adrift and had played two games more than everybody else. We did well to stay up that season and I am very proud of my record.

“I know what the modern footballer is like. They are very active on social media, which allows comments from all sources to come at them. Not all of those will be positive. So they have to prove people wrong. They all have reasons to prove people wrong, whether it is monetary or family or to make people proud.

"Whatever the reason it is my job to get to the bottom of that. I have always believed my job is to make players better. If you make them better, then they perform better and the team performance is better. That brings results.”

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Smith is confident City’s fan base will buy into a new dawn, and insisted it is not mission impossible after taking five points from the opening 11 top flight games.

“I don’t have to ask for their support because they will turn up and support their football team,” he said. “What we want to do is make sure we give them a hard working and competitive team that they can be proud of.

“The fact is we are 11 games in. We have 27 games left. Yes, it hasn’t been the greatest of starts, which is why I am sat here. There has been shoots already of good signs.

"The win at Brentford is a big thing for the players. It should give them confidence. It is a good squad that has probably been underperforming and our job is to get performances.”