Football Season Guide

Norwich completed their mesmeric rise to the top flight in May after beating Portsmouth and thus sealing promotion to the Premiership two years after suffering relegation from the Championship and thus dropping to League One. However, Paul Lambert has taken charge since then and lead the Canaries to two consecutive promotions by playing a superb brand of attacking football on the way. The word extraordinary achievement does not really do Lambert and his men enough justice and actually keeping the team among the big boys this season will elevate them to even higher level. Lambert does not have a particular way in which he made Norwich a successful side again other than just letting the players express themselves and encourage to have a go at supposedly superior teams. While that worked out well in the Championship, with the team scoring an incredible number of goals in added time when going for broke, the Premiership presents another sort of challenge and the team will need something different. Lambert surely realises that but his transfer dealings have been aimed mostly at further stocking up the attacking department with Elliott Bennett, Steve Morison, James Vaughan and Anthony Pilkington. Sure enough, a couple of defenders arrived as well, but they are both young full-backs and not the sort of players expected to boost the back line. Yet, it is tough to be harsh on Norwich and their manager and they may well follow the philosophy taken by Blackpool last season - just having a go at teams - something that almost saw them survive. And for what it is worthy, Norwich have a superior side than Blackpool had last season and definitely have a pretty good chance to stay up provided that Grant Holt keeps coming up goals and Wes Hoolohan is able to string passess in the middle of the park.