There is no dressing it up for Harrison Reed – Norwich City have been shown just how far away they are from being serious Premier League promotion contenders this season, in Championship defeats at Cardiff and at home to Wolves.
However, the on-loan Southampton midfielder is confident Daniel Farke’s squad will stick together through what are sticky times – times arguably leaving Canaries fans worried more about what’s happening at the bottom end of the table rather than the top.
And that sentiment only deepened following City’s 3-1 defeat at Cardiff on Friday night, with both of the Championship’s top two now having put Norwich to the sword in a matter of weeks.
“Yes it’s been a reality check,” said Reed. “If you looked at the start of the season we had a bit of a rough start, and then we put nine or 10 games together where we looked very strong and we looked like we were really competing for the top six of the Championship.
“Then we were on the back foot again after the three losses in a row, and the run has just kept knocking us back and back.
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“We can only keep doing what we believe is right, stick together in there and hopefully we can put in a performance on Saturday at home to Sheffield Wednesday, and get three points.”
Not since being relegated from the Championship in 2008-09 have City gone seven games without a win in the division – although this is only their fourth second-tier season since, and two of those brought promotion.
Such pressure tightens the screw on the City squad, but Reed is confident it can withstand the heat as a collective unit.
“It’s down to us and we’ve got a good group in there,” he added. “A mixture of young and old, and there are a few leaders in there who give us grief when we need to; say a few harsh words.
“But we always believe in each other and we’re a good team in there. We’ve got good individuals, strong individuals and characters, so we stick together. That’s the least we can do.
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“It is a real test of character, but we can work hard on the training ground and it’s down to us to put on a performance that the fans deserve.
“I thought Friday was a good performance. It was a competitive performance. We showed some fight, which maybe we’ve lacked in previous weeks and when we got the ball down and played – which was our game plan, not to play long too much because they are a strong physical side – I thought we did well at times.
“But it’s carrying it out over 90 minutes – silly mistakes, letting teams back in and the momentum then builds. So it’s something we need to work on.
“What we need is a home win on Saturday. We need a packed crowd to get behind us and we need to really go for it, and get the three points.”
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