Eat, Sleep, Drink Norwich City: Here’s hoping our new boys will be like those Terriers!

I am being realistic when I say, after we got Stuart Webber from Huddersfield Town, that what we are going to achieve this season will be the Terriers’ model.

But it would be silly of me to say that we are among the top two or three favourite to go up after the big-name signings made by Aston Villa, Middlesborough, Hull and Sunderland. Like Huddersfield did, I think we have to set the play-offs as our target this season.

Jacob Murphy, John Ruddy, Jonny Howson, Graham Dorrans, Sebastien Bassong, Michael Turner, Kyle Lafferty, Youssouf Mulumbu, Ryan Bennett and Steven Whittaker all left and there may be more to come, some expected some unexpected. They were among our highest earners, but you just couldn’t see much improvement from them.

We perhaps don’t know much about some of our new signings, but they have a freshness and points to prove by doing well for us. Bryan Gunn’s son and Norwich fan Angus is highly rated and definitely wants to do well for Norwich. We have the new German 6ft 4in centre-half pairing of Marcel Franke and Christoph Zimmermann, the former Borussia Dortmund II captain, who played the full 90 minutes of the opening five pre-season games. They have shown a determination and freshness in our defence, which came in for some heavy criticism last season.

Keeping Tim Klose, Russell Martin and Wes Hoolahan could be crucial for us with their experience in the Premier League, orf going up and coming down – that knowledge will be important to us when we are in the bad run.

It is a big season for striker Nelson Oliveira – it’s his second season with us and there are no excuses if he can’t score many goals, as we think he can do.

For the academy players, I must say I am quite sad to see “the new Grant Holt” Carlton Morris go on loan to Shrewsbury – it should be a big season to him. But we have James Maddison, Harry Toffolo, Josh Murphy and the versatile Ben Godfrey ready to knock on the first team door. There is one youngster who I believe will break into the first team this season and that is the 17-year-old Scottish winger Glenn Middleton. You’ll soon forget Jacob Murphy once you see Middleton play – he is enthusiastic, exciting and works hard for the team. i think he needs a chance in the first team.

On the Ball, City! See you all in mid-October.