Even though Saturday's contest at Old Trafford ended in defeat, few will have walked away from Salford feeling as though City hadn't made a respectable account of themselves.

Yes, to some extent City were the architects of their own downfalls, particularly when it came to handing a gilt-edged chance within six minutes to - of all people - Cristiano Ronaldo. If you're going to hand away chances, try not to give them to probably the second-best player of our generation.

But silly mistakes aside, City made United work incredibly hard to claim all three points and showed real signs of improvement from the turgid football we've seen pretty much all season.

The performance came a week after a richly deserved three points at home to fellow strugglers Burnley, in which we were far and away the better side.

In a bit of a sad indictment of this season as a whole, it has been a little while since I feel we have delivered back-to-back displays that we can comfortably call respectable.

For me, both games had more positives to write home about than negatives. Sadly, it does feel a case of too little and too late though - although nothing would make me happier than being proved wrong.

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But while the improvement does not fill me with confidence that we'll somehow perform the great escape and play Premier League football next season, it does make me optimistic about our chances of bouncing straight back again.

If you were to rewind the clock a few weeks back, after the Leeds game, I was absolutely certain that relegation was how the season would end and frankly that opinion hasn't changed.

However, had you also asked me whether I thought we would be able to repeat our yo-yo stunt, hand-on-heart I don't actually think I would have said yes.

In the wake of that frustrating afternoon at Elland Road, I really, really struggled to see how enough confidence could be instilled in this team to rebuild a side capable of challenging for promotion.

It felt as though we were sleepwalking towards relegation - which admittedly is what happened after Project Restart, but it just felt different.

The season will likely still end in relegation, but from what we've seen the past two weeks, it won't be without a fight.

The Burnley match was the first that made me believe we will have enough to be challenging for promotion again, in that it looked like an archetypal Championship game.

It wasn't awash with quality, but City were able to defend resolutely, create chances and look fairly solid, all traits you need to be fighting at the top of the second tier.

And, with all due respect to Burnley, they looked every bit Championship opposition - in quality, in approach and in set-up.

If that match was an audition for what being back in the Championship will be like, we passed it.

In fairness, the United side we faced also probably wouldn't have looked too out of place in the second tier - they just happened to have a certain you know who in the side to once again drag them just beyond mediocrity.

In both of these games, Dean Smith showed he will be more than capable of setting up a team to once again push for promotion - although I'm less confident that it will be at quite the same canter than Daniel Farke achieved twice.

Looking across the squad, I don't feel like it will be completely obliterated. There will probably be a few departures, but from the starting eleven on Saturday, I could see all but Mathias Normann being still here come the start of the season.

However, while the last two performances have awoken a degree of positivity in me, they have also frustrated me in a different way.

And that is this - why has it taken so many games to shift back to the very formation that won us the Championship with aplomb?

Why did it take us to look shaky at the back and fragile in midfield for so long to screen the back four with two defenders instead of one?

The midfield double pivot, with a number 10 behind Teemu Pukki served us so, so well last season and since it has been re-introduced, we've looked 10 times the team.

So why did it take us so long to try it?

I genuinely believe that had the team that played the last two games been the team that faced Brentford and Leeds, we'd currently be sitting a point behind Everton with every chance of survival.

Had the set-up been rolled out a few months ago, we may even have been sitting in mid-table somewhere.

I realise there were periods where the personnel wasn't always there to make it work and it is very easy to say these things with the benefit of hindsight, but it's abundantly clear to anyone who watches Norwich City that the 4-2-3-1 base formation is the one that has brought us the most success.

It's disappointing though that so many other plans had to fail before the Plan A that has served us so well got another run.

Nonetheless, the last two fixtures have at the very least made me believe that we won't go down with quite such a whimper as it looked we would - and that we will be back.

Teemu will stand test of time

If ever there was a doubt that Teemu Pukki will have a long lasting legacy at Carrow Road, I feel that can now be put to bed.

His goal at Old Trafford took him to double figures for the season - the first player to have done that twice in the top flight for the club since football was invented by Rupert Murdoch in 1992.

Snide jokes aside about how certain corners of the media seem to see football, it's an achievement that can't be understated.

Particularly given he managed this feat in the two most goal-shy Norwich teams in Premier League history speaks volumes.

I have to confess when he arrived, I had never heard his name in my life. Now, I know I'll still be talking about him when my four-month-old son is changing the nappies of his own offspring.

For me, he's the only candidate for player of the season this campaign too.

While players like Grant Hanley and Brandon Williams have impressed, to net double figures in this team is no mean feat and deserves rewarding.

Farke at Burnley? They could do worse

While it is inevitable that having left us earlier in the season, Daniel Farke is likely to be touted with just about every vacancy in the country from the bottom-half of the Premier League down, Burnley could genuinely do worse than our former boss.

As we all know, he is made of the right stuff, as his two rampant Championship wins shows - even if he didn't have all that much luck in the Premier League.

But personally, if I was in charge of appointing the new boss at Turf Moor, Farke would be at the very top of my list.

While we saw at Carrow Road he does take a while to make things click, when they get going, they really get going.

If their display against us is anything to go by, Burnley are doomed for the drop anyway. So why not get a man who knows how to get out of the Championship in his sleep?

While it would be tough for me to see Farke in an opposition dugout and I'd much rather he land a job abroad so that doesn't have to happen, he is one of football's good guys and the sooner he is back involved with it the better.

That said, there is something about 'Sam Allardyce's Burnley' that just sounds so familiar isn't there?