It’s unfortunate that after the huge disappointment of last season, and all the attendant negativity surrounding it, that we find ourselves pitched so quickly into the new one.

It seems like only yesterday that City were wrapping up their disastrous campaign against Spurs, yet off we go again against Cardiff as the Canaries look to bounce back.

Pre-season is all about getting miles into legs while hopefully avoiding injury and results are largely irrelevant, so convincingly defeating a Champions League team in Marseille doesn’t indicate an incoming league title any more than losing to another in Celtic while barely landing a punch doesn’t signal a season of mid-table mediocrity or even worse.

Inevitably, the constantly changing starting line-ups, formations and numerous substitutions have made it hard to guess today’s side or to establish the style that Dean Smith will use in the Championship, while the absence through injury of the two new signings has not been helpful to the manager’s planning.

However, what the friendlies have shown is that Smith and Craig Shakespeare have worked hard on developing a pressing game and a compact shape when defending, but what we have yet to see is how creative City are able to be when dominating possession, given that they have largely played on the break in the latter part of pre-season.

In the Championship they will encounter plenty of teams who will be happy to sit behind the ball and defend in numbers and the key to City’s success or failure will be how effectively they are able to break them down.

Frustratingly, much of this is unclear because we have yet to see Isaac Hayden or Gabriel Sara in action, but I expect both, when fit, to allow Smith to replicate the sort of set-up he had at Villa given that both are strong and athletic along similar lines to John McGinn and Conor Hourihane, which would see City with a more dynamic midfield set-up than last season.

However, we will have to wait a while longer to see whether that assumption is correct, but if it is then City have the perfect player for the role that Jack Grealish played for Villa, because one of the genuine highlights of pre-season has been the form and attitude of Todd Cantwell.

He has looked hungry for the ball and has also worked his socks off when City have been out of possession, and that augurs well for a season in which he could be one of the major creative forces in the Championship.

While the player appears to have put a horribly disappointing season behind him, it is important that the fans do too, because a motivated and in-form Cantwell would be a huge asset.

It's also frustrating that Kieran Dowell has missed pre-season as there were signs at the end of last season that he could provide good service to Teemu Pukki, who has largely been starved of it over the last few weeks, although the goal scoring form of Jordan Hugill has come as a pleasant surprise and offers City an alternative style of attacking play.

As ever at this stage of a season there will be optimism and pessimism amongst supporters, with the latter mindset being exacerbated by the fact that many haven’t yet got last season and all its misery out of their systems.

I’d like to think that City will hit the ground running, but we may need to show some patience if their last Championship campaign is anything to go by, because just like that season they are coming off an abject relegation with a section of the fanbase already questioning the ability of the manager to turn things around.

However, in that case the club backed Daniel Farke, despite a far from convincing opening half dozen games with key players clearly unsettled, and the rest, of course, is history.