Farke insists he wasn’t defeatist with his rhetoric this season

City’s head coach often described his side as underdogs and claimed they had a 5pc chance of survival throughout the campaign.

That choice of rhetoric was described in some quarters as pessimistic and some supporters feared it could stifle the players’ confidence in the Premier League.

Instead, City’s boss explains he opted for brutal realism after City decided to commit to playing their way and not spend beyond their means in their quest for survival.

“We opted to go for the solid and smart decision. That means to pay for our sins, to invest in the infrastructure and to extend some contracts.

“After we took this decision, we knew we had a 5pc chance to stay in this league.

“I’ve said this since the first day - to be honest, in the whole furore after promotion, people don’t want to hear this. If I speak about this like ‘it’s good, he’s smart and he’s doing understatements but they will be alright because they were fantastic in the Championship’.

“It was no understatement. It was more realistic. If the outcome is relegation then you look at the quotes and say ‘well, he was not convinced from the start, he should have been more positive’.

“You can’t do the right thing because if we would have said in the summer ‘we’ll be absolutely fine with our way’ and then the outcome is relegation, everyone would say we were naive and stupid.

It's a difficult season for Daniel Farke and Norwich City. Picture: Paul Chesterton/Focus Images Ltd (Image: Paul Chesterton)

“You can’t win whatever you say at this moment and for that we opted to stay absolutely honest and be direct and say that we have a 5pc chance.”

Reflecting on the season, City’s boss believes his side needed many things to align in order for them to stay in the Premier League.

“We have to have a perfect start, we need unbelievable luck with injuries and game luck with VAR,” he explained on the club’s channels.

“I don’t want to complain too much about fate and use it as an excuse but we always had an incredibly tough start from the programme. We played, in the first gamedays, Liverpool, Manchester City and Chelsea.

“Then, nobody was hit with as many injuries. We lost many games by one goal. It would have been possible for us with 15 points more and stay in the league.”