Read Norwich’s admin, Seb Ward, recently interviewed former Norwich City legend Paul McVeigh, who made 224 appearances for City, scoring 36 goals.

Seb Ward: Hi Paul. First of all, thank you for agreeing to speak with me.

Paul McVeigh: Not a problem.

SW: As a former player and now as a fan, how special did last season feel following Norwich?

PM: Yeah it was special; I think it’s right up there with the best, best moments of the whole football club because in some ways it’s actually better than being in the Premier League. There’s so much excitement and anticipation, and the fact that’s it’s only the second time of being in the final. And obviously, having the experience first hand of the previous time – coming out on the losing side – the fact that this time after only twenty minutes it was practically done and dusted..everyone knew by that stage there was no way they [Norwich] were going to throw it away. Yeah, it was a great experience, and I know that from all my friends who are Norwich fans, it was one of the best days of their life.

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SW: And on a personal level, would you say you appreciate even more so how big an achievement it is given the failures of 2002?

PM: Yeah, yeah absolutely because it’s difficult to do it and it’s that much of a lottery whenever you do get to the playoffs. Y’know, you just look at Middlesbrough who were probably a better team throughout nearly the entire season, beating Norwich twice…and then they throw it all away in the final. That just shows how cruel the playoffs can be. It’s not necessarily the best team over the season, but that’s just how it is at the minute.

SW: As owner of Thinkpro, an organisation specialising in the mental side of the game, how important would you say confidence and form is for each of those players going into next season?

PM: For me, it’s the biggest thing; the most important thing. Those players need to believe they can stay in the Premier League, and the fact that some of the players in that squad have done it before – both being promoted to the Premier League, and staying in the Premier League – that for me is huge. Just because there’ll be some players who haven’t played there – some players who don’t have that experience of the step-up in quality. There’s players who can tell them what it’s like, and show them the way to do it and to have that belief. Looking at last season with Leicester; everyone wrote them off for most of the season, but I think the only ones who weren’t writing them off were Leicester. Norwich need to have the exact same mindset going into next season.

SW: Yeah I think that’s definitely the case, and your book The Stupid Footballer Is Dead, goes into a lot of detail about how the mental strength is a massive portion of the game alongside ability. When you look at van Wolfswinkel, and what he’s gone through; obviously coming in as the record signing, and being branded as ‘the Big Bad Wolf’, and the pressure that came with that, is it all down to him mentally, confidence-wise, to reignite his career?

PM: I think the fact that he’s a goalscorer – he scored goals before he came to Norwich – and when he was out on loan last season he obviously got a few. It’s not the fact that he can’t score, can’t put the ball in the back of the net; he has proven that he can do that. I think a lot of what is has come down to is adjusting to the Premier League. No matter what league you’re playing in, unless you’re one of the best players in the world, coming to the Premier League is never easy because it’s just a completely different type of football. Obviously other leagues have quality in them, but it’s the quality with the intensity and the pace of the game that makes it unlike any other league. So that’s probably one of the biggest adjustment Ricky’s [van Wolfswinkel] has had to make.

SW: If you look at his past stats, they show he was a prolific goalscorer; I mean 28 goals in 55 appearances at Sporting Lisbon is one every other game. If he could replicate anything like that it would be hugely influential. Then again, there’s still a considerable possibility that he may move clubs.

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Staying on the topic of the mental side of the game, for an outsider looking in, it’s difficult to gauge why players do the things they do. For example in October 2006 you were sent off for head butting a player against Cardiff (even though Norwich were winning 1-0). In moments like that, is it purely based on situation or do you feel that the adrenaline which is embedded in the game as a whole is to account for that?

PM: Well me doing that, and similar situations, is when you’re not thinking logically or rationally. That occasion was the typical rush of blood to the head. I don’t know whether you’ve read Dr Steve Peters’ book, The Chimp Paradox, that’s a typical example of the limbic system kicking in. It was just purely an emotional, rational response to the guy and what he did – taking me out above the knee. The referee didn’t do anything about it and so that was my automatic reaction. It links back nearly all the way back to caveman times almost! He tried to kill me and I went up to try and kill him…metaphorically speaking. It wasn’t really a headbutt, more of a coming together like stags interlocking antlers. It wasn’t as bad as it looked but that’s the whole situation as you say; sometimes in games, because of the pressure, because the stress levels are higher than everyday life, sometimes that happens.

Thinking about it now, with what I do now and how it fits into the big picture, the more times that happens, the better that you will become at dealing with it. That was a learning curve for me. Luckily for me, my record wasn’t too bad across 16 years.

SW: Yeah well I certainly didn’t find much when researching – you’re not known for losing your cool.

PM: Actually it’s happened other times, I just didn’t react in the same way. For instance there was one time we played Millwall down at The Den, and it was actually Tim Cahill playing for Millwall. We both went in for a 50-50 tackle, and the ball moved away. I got up to try and get back to where the ball had gone to and Tim Cahill just spat in my face. I would categorise that at the exact same level. My emotional response was I want to kill this guy. I wanted to punch him in the face…but because I didn’t I avoided all the repercussions of that. Luckily, I managed to take control of my chimp.

SW: So it’s very much that football itself creates the atmosphere, and then all it takes is someone to make a bad challenge or say something to create that spark.

PM: Yeah and then it’s all about how you react to that.

SW: Okay, obviously now you do some motivational speaking. I’m interested in knowing how much emphasis you’d put on that in a football world; how big an impact does a manager’s pre-match talk have on the players? Alex Neil has been coined for his ‘wee chats’ but is it really that influential?

PM: I think it’s important, just because some managers can overload players with information beforehand. There’s only so much the brain can cope with at any one time, it really is quite limited in terms of the conscious mind. So if a manager’s giving a 20 minute team talk, telling you about this player, or this or that, all these bits of information, it could overwhelm the brain, so that’s where the manager needs to be savvy enough.

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It’s interesting, I knew a guy who worked at Arsenal and he said that Arsene Wenger basically had three points on the board of what he wanted his players to do. Only three. That was all he told them. He didn’t try and swamp them, and y’know, (laughs) think it’s worked pretty well over the years.

SW: So during your career did you ever experience a Hollywood-esque managerial talk, where it’s purely to gee up the players – not necessarily going too much into tactics like you said.

PM: (Laughs) No that’s only for the movies!

SW: (laughs) Fair enough! In an interview on BT Sport’s Life’s A Pitch that you did when promoting your book, you said that you’d worked very closely with Cameron McGeehan to help ‘visualise’ his own success. Obviously he went on to lift the FA Youth Cup. Has your involvement had any impact on his decision to move to Luton?

PM: I don’t know, I think you’d have to ask him that. It’s his career – I didn’t help him achieve success. All I did was support him and offer the information that I thought would be useful for him. It’s down to him as to whether he takes it on board. A lot of the players from that team I worked with – I told them all the same thing. And yet, not all the players reacted in the same way. I think with Cam, he’s such a savvy and astute man, he understands quite early in his career just how important this aspect of professional football is. Attitude and mentality has a huge impact. You come across so many players who have so much talent and yet they didn’t make it as professional football players, purely because of their mindset – their psychology.

SW: For a player like McGeehan who’s just on the edge of senior football, having just come out of regularly playing U21s football, would you say it’s now more difficult for those youth players to progress to senior level than in your era? For example more and more players are now coming from Europe to fill out Premier League squads – does this provide an obstacle which wasn’t there during your youth career?

PM: No, not at all. I think it’s the opposite. If there’s a young player in this country who’s good enough, they have every opportunity to make it. The scouting network, the system, it’s so good now. There won’t be a player who will go under the radar who is top class. If they’re any good, at least one club will know about him – in fact probably most of the clubs will.

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I met Ian Wright the other day when I was doing some work with him, and one of the things that stuck out was that he didn’t come into professional football until he was 19 or 20. That will probably never ever happen again!

SW: Okay, well your career at Spurs was in part administered by a certain Chris Hughton. Clearly he had a massive impact at Norwich and left with fans being displeased over the playing style that he implemented, but did you ever see a hint of negativity in his approach to attacking football?

PM: No, no, never. Chris Hughton never ever asked us to play defensively at all. I only worked really with Chris when I was in the reserves. It was all about getting the ball down, getting the team playing. Getting it wide to the wingers, getting crosses in.

SW: I guess that’s just the impact of the Premier League then.

PM: Yeah, it’s a completely different scenario. You can’t compare reserve team football at Spurs with trying to keep a team like Norwich in the Premier League. You’ll always be up against better teams, better players, bigger budgets, world class players. Chris Hughton went out there and did his best; what he thinks is best. Y’know, Chris Hughton is no man-fool at all. He knows what he’s doing. He’s a proper football man. He’s been in the game his entire life, had an incredible playing career, winning the FA Cup with Spurs and playing in World Cups for Ireland. To try and label Chris Hughton as a defensive coach isn’t quite right. With his wealth of knowledge he thought that gave Norwich the best chance of staying in the league.

It’s all opinions anyway!

SW: From your point of view, do you think if Norwich had changed their manager earlier on in the season, sacking Chris Hughton earlier than they did, would they have stayed up? I know it’s easy to say in hindsight yes they would, but do you believe Hughton had done a bad job? Was he unfair to have been labeled a defensive manager?

PM: I don’t think that he’s a bad manager. I don’t think that he did a bad job because obviously when he took over he kept them in the league for the first year. Had they sacked him earlier it depends who they had brought in. I can’t even attempt to guess as you can’t talk about an alternative option that didn’t happen.

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SW: You were promoted to the Premier League in 2004, how do you think that squad of players compares to the squad going into the 2015/16 season coming up in August?

PM: Probably quite similar. The team I played in, we didn’t really have any superstars. Some fans might disagree and say that Darren Huckerby was the superstar of the team, but as good a player as Hucks was he never acted like the superstar. He was the hardest working, the fittest guy at the club. He did more than anyone in terms of training and preparation and dedication. And I don’t think Norwich have any superstars this time. That’s why I think Alex Neil has done well, however, if I were a manager, my mate Wes Hoolahan would be my superstar. I’d build my team around him because I think he’s that good, but other managers have different thought’s and opinions on him.

SW: Yeah some people see him as a luxury player, but then there are few players with the spark that he has. Anyway, of that current squad, who would you say you as a player were most similar to?

PM: Most similar to? Wow.

SW: (Laughs as McVeigh contemplates the question)

PM: It’s a tough one because I don’t think there’s really anyone who plays in the team now.  The only person who I would like to compare myself to is Wes [Hoolahan], but I know having played with him in the season we got promoted (09/10) that I couldn’t lace his boots in terms of ability and talent. For me he’s up there with the top five, top three players I’ve ever played with. And that’s saying something because I’ve played alongside the likes of Genola, Sherringham, Bellamy among others. I’d definitely put Wes up there, probably with Dean Ashton too.

SW: Well didn’t you play more as a winger, or at least in a wider role than Wes generally plays?

PM: Well, yeah, but that’s more down to the formations we played. We rarely played anything but a 4-4-2 so I played out wide. When we ever did play the diamond, I would sit at the top of the diamond. And even when we played 4-4-2 I would always cut inside.

SW: Yeah, well I think we have even see Wes play out wide when there’s been a four man midfield including Dorrans, Johnson and Howson, so there’s an overlap there too.

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Finally then, I’d like a prediction for next season. If you want to be specific (or brave) you can go for a position. Generally though how do you think Norwich will do next season? Is survival the only ambition or can Norwich aim for more?

PM: I think they can do. They definitely can stay up. They’ve done it before and shown it can be done. All I know is that you’ve got to be incredibly pumped. Without putting my neck on the line, I think Norwich can stay up. I just think it’s going to be very, very difficult.

SW: More difficult than when Paul Lambert took Norwich up?

PM: There’s not much in it. They’re pretty much on the same level. The jump from the Championship to the Prem is always really tough.

SW: Paul McVeigh, thank you very much.

PM: Not a problem, all the best.