We were 23rd in the Championship when Philippe Clement walked through the door. Everyone knows that. Everyone also knows that we’re 17th now.
An 11-point buffer from the bottom three with 11 to play feels pretty good considering how rubbish we were all feeling for most of the first half of the season. It’s also easy to under-estimate the scale of the turnaround, even though every suitable adjective in the OED has been used to describe it.
Today I’m going with incredulous, but, just like all the rest, it doesn’t do justice to the job done by Clement and Stephan van der Heyden.
We’ll look back, in years to come, at the winter of 2025 and spring of 2026 as a heady time to be a Norwich supporter.
As if we needed reminding, he was appointed on November 18, 2025, inheriting a squad that had taken nine points from 15 league games under that Liam Manning. In his first 20 Championship matches, the Belgian has accumulated 36 points at a rate of 1.8 PPG, a pace that projects to roughly 82 points across a full 46-game season.
That’s play-off territory from a squad that was staring at League One.
Before and after
| Manager | League Games | Points | PPG | 46-Game Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Liam Manning | 15 | 9 | 0.60 | 28 |
| Philippe Clement | 20 | 36 | 1.80 | 82 |
The turnaround in 2026 has been even sharper. City have picked up 24 points from the first 11 league matches of 2026, the best return of any Championship club in that window.
Carrow Road, which saw seven consecutive home defeats under Manning, threatens to become a fortress again.
The 21st century benchmark
So where does Clement’s current rate sit among every permanent Norwich head coach since 2000?
Here we go… (based on PPG across all competitions during their Norwich tenure, with Clement’s league-only figure included).
| Head coach | Tenure | PPG | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Daniel Farke | 2017–2021 | 1.49 | Two Championship titles; 1.81 PPG in the second tier alone |
| Chris Hughton | 2012–2014 | 1.24 | Two mid-table PL finishes, Dull. |
| Nigel Worthington | 2001–2006 | 1.44 | PL promotion 2004 |
| Paul Lambert | 2009–2012 | 1.76 | Back-to-back promotions |
| Alex Neil | 2015–2017 | 1.20 | Playoff final win, PL relegation, Champ mid-table |
| Dean Smith | 2021–2023 | 1.06 | PL relegation, Championship play-off miss. Awful |
| David Wagner | 2023–2024 | 1.10 | Sacked at the end of the season. Odd one. |
| Johannes Hoff Thorup | 2024–2025 | 1.18 | One season. (Ask Knapper) |
| Liam Manning | 2025 | 0.60 | Sacked after 17 games (Let’s not go there) |
| Philippe Clement | 2025–present | 1.80* | League only, 20 games |
Only Farke’s Championship-specific 1.81 PPG sits above Clement’s current clip, and that took 138 games to establish.
Small sample? Obviously. But 20 games are enough to say this is a proper head coach at work.
