We must be Norwich united - Delia

David Cuffley

Delia Smith defended the decision to reappoint Bryan Gunn as manager but insisted Norwich City must become Norwich united to make it work.

The club's joint majority shareholder said Gunn needed more time than he had last season in which to make his mark.

She said: “I think every manager has to start somewhere and we just feel he didn't have enough time and that he needs to get in there and do his own thing. He did inherit quite a lot of what was there.

“We saw some very good football under Bryan, so we're looking on the bright side. We're looking for the positives and maybe if we get a few players with heart who are not looking at the end of the season thinking 'I'm not going to be here, so what?' it might work for him and we hope it does.

“We also felt continuity was important and we've watched a whole lot of staff come in, a whole lot of staff go out. With the experience of John Deehan and Ian Butterworth in League One, the one thing we knew we needed straightaway was that kind of experience.”

But she said there had to be team spirit throughout the club.

“Our ambition for the future is to become a really strong team on and off the pitch,” she said. “We want to try to be more united with Colney, to try to get everybody pulling in the same direction and everybody working together. That's the most important thing in a football club, to have a team behind the scenes as well as on the pitch and that's what we're going to work very hard to create now.”

Delia admitted last season had been a bad experience.

She said: “It has been awful and I am looking forward to having three months of Sunday morning waking up and not thinking 'Oh my God, we lost again'. We are going to have a little breathing space now but it has been very painful, they have been very long journeys home and when we get home we save up all our TV things that we like, get in, switch on and try to forget it.”