A throwback to the past: What happened the last 3 times Norwich City secured promotion to the Premier League
The expectations amongst the fans at Carrow Road are bound to rise and cross all limits, as Norwich City get ready to compete in the 2019-20 season of the Premier League following a campaign of resounding success in the Championship the last term.
The Canaries secured automatic promotion to the Premier League as the winners of the Championship, thus putting an end to their three-year exile from the top-flight.
In fact, Daniel Farke’s side played one of the most attractive brands of football in the second-tier of English football last season, with the former manager of Borussia Dortmund’s reserves managing to get the Canaries back to the Premier League with a clear and distinct identity of their own.
A throwback to the recent past reveals that this is the first time since 2003-04 that Norwich City have managed to secure promotion to the Premier League as the winners of the Championship.
The last time that the Canaries had managed to achieve a similar feat was 16 years ago under the stewardship of Nigel Worthington, although their stay in the top-flight at that time didn’t last for more than a season.
Fellow newcomers Aston Villa have already spent quite a lot in the transfer market following their return to the top-flight but Farke isn’t expected to splash the cash to such an extent this time around, given the club’s financial constraints.
That, however, is unlikely to bother the Canaries too much, considering how they managed to excel in the Championship with some shrewd low-budget signings.
Norwich have taken steps to strengthen their ranks, though, with the Canaries completing a loan deal for Man City starlet Partick Roberts, while Swiss striker Josip Drmic has also made his move to Carrow Road on a free transfer this summer.
There is still a lot of time to go before the transfer deadline in August, meaning that the fans have every reason to anticipate a few more new arrivals prior to the start of the upcoming Premier League season.
Leaving all those transfer talks aside, let us turn the pages of the history book and look at what happened the last three times that Norwich City got promoted to the Premier League.
Now, that could send a chill down the spines of most of the fans at Carrow Road, given that the Premier League hasn’t necessarily proved to be a happy hunting ground for the Canaries in the recent past.
Nevertheless, it is certainly worthwhile to take a walk down the memory lanes, as the Canaries prepare themselves for a return to the mainstream of English football.
1. 2004-05
Manager: Nigel Worthington
The 2003-04 season was the last time that Norwich made it to the Premier League as the winners of the Championship but their results in the top-flight in the following campaign were less than impressive.
A dismal run in the opening stages of the season saw them go winless until mid-November before a 2-1 victory over Southampton at home gave the fans something to cheer about.
The Canaries managed to register only two victories until the end of December, with the other positive result being a 3-2 victory over Bolton Wanderers, once again on home soil.
A 3-2 victory over West Brom was followed by another unimpressive losing streak of 5 games before a sudden upturn of form in April breathed life into their faltering campaign.
Norwich registered victories over the likes of Man United, Charlton, Newcastle United and Birmingham City in the latter stages of the season and those impressive results put them in pole position to beat the drop.
However, a shocking 6-0 defeat away at Fulham in the final game of the campaign sealed their fate and the Canaries returned back to the Championship with tails between their legs, notably without winning a single game away from home all season.
A ninth-place finish in the Championship in the 2005-06 season followed by a poor start to the 2006-07 campaign saw the club pull the trigger on Nigel Worthington, with former player Peter Grant taking charge of the Canaries in October 2006.
2. 2011-12 to 2013-14
Managers: Paul Lambert and Chris Hughton
Norwich were stuttering in League One when Paul Lambert took charge in the summer of 2009 and led the Canaries to promotion to the Championship after just a single season in the third-tier.
Things got even better for them in the 2010-11 season when Norwich, under Lambert, secured promotion to the Premier League, and in doing so, became the first team since Man City in 2000 to achieve the feat of back-to-back promotions from the third-tier to the top-flight.
Grant Holt, who had previously spearheaded the Canaries surge for promotion in the Championship with 21 goals, stepped up for his club in the Premier League and netted 15 times, as Norwich managed a respectable 12th-place finish in the 2011-12 season.
A tally of 12 wins and 11 draws was next to remarkable for a team that was tottering in League One just a couple of years back.
Chris Hughton replaced Lambert at the helm of affairs ahead of the 2012-13 season but the new manager was greeted with a heavy 5-0 defeat at the hands of Fulham in his very first game.
Norwich made the headlines with the signings of Sebastien Bassong and Alex Tettey, with both the players going on to play a key role for the Canaries in the Premier League.
Norwich failed to register even a single victory in their first seven league games, with 4 of them ending in defeats.
Things, however, improved gradually and Hughton managed to guide the Canaries to an 11th-place finish in the Premier League, which was their best ever finish in the top-flight since finishing third way back in 1992.
Norwich’s third season on their return to the top-flight started with a 2-2 draw against Everton at home but it wasn’t long before things started to go downhill for the Canaries and manager Chris Hughton.
Heavy defeats at the hands of Arsenal and Man City away from home enraged most of the fans at Carrow Road before a 3-1 comeback win over West Ham sparked a mini-resurgence.
However, Norwich failed to replicate the performances that they had put together in their first two seasons in the top-flight and it became more and more apparent that their stay in the Premier League was slowly but surely coming to an end. A 1-0 defeat at the hands of West Brom early in April saw the club hierarchy pull the trigger on Hughton, with Neil Adams being named as his replacement.
That call probably came way too late, as five consecutive defeats towards the end of the season saw the Canaries finish a disappointing 18th on the table and return to the Championship.
Although Norwich enjoyed a lot of success in their first two seasons in the Premier League, their honeymoon turned sour all of a sudden in the 2013-14 campaign, thus marking the end of the club’s most successful spell in the top-flight in recent times.
3. 2015-16
Manager: Alex Neil
Neil Adams’ reign as the manager at Carrow Road didn’t last long and then Hamilton Academical manager Alex Neil was appointed at the helm of affairs in the second half of the 2014-15 season in the Championship.
The arrival of Neil marked an upturn of form and Norwich eventually secured immediate promotion to the Premier League with a 2-0 victory over Middlesbrough in the playoff final, having initially managed a third-place finish in the league.
The start of the 2015-16 season was marked by the arrival of a few quality players like Youssouf Mulumbu, Graham Dorrans and Robbie Brady and Norwich made a decent start to the campaign, despite losing 3-1 to Crystal Palace in their opening fixture.
The Canaries registered 2 wins and 3 draws in their first seven league games before things fell apart with four consecutive defeats at the hands of Leicester City, Newcastle, West Brom and Man City.
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Norwich came back from the dead to register a surprise 2-0 victory over Man United at Old Trafford but a winless streak of 10 games (including 8 defeats) starting from mid-January to mid-April sealed their fate, as the Canaries finished second-bottom in the Premier League and suffered relegation to the Championship once again.
