- Five sliding doors moments that altered modern Norwich City history.
- Revisiting the fateful Carrow Road decisions that changed everything.
- How Josh Sargent’s text message saga reshaped the Canaries.
What If… began as a classic Marvel comic exploring alternate universes. But you don’t need to be a comic book superhero fan to imagine alternative Norwich City histories. As we look forward to a fresh Championship season under Philippe Clement, here are five massive Carrow Road ‘What Ifs’ that could have changed everything.
What if… Chase had backed Martin O’Neill
Martin O’Neill is one of those veteran managers who is hanging in there. What is weird is there was a time he managed Norwich City.
Sadly, we were not able to back him. Given his success elsewhere, it is hard not to think what could have happened.
What if… Alex Neil hadn’t subbed Tettey
There was a moment. Norwich were ahead against Newcastle.
And then Alex Neil decided to take Alex Tettey off and bring on Wes Hoolahan.
To be clear, Wes is an absolute legend and I love him, this is not about him as a player.
But to concede the space we did led to us throwing away a win that had devastating consequences.
Would that one win been enough to stay up? Maybe not. But it was a decision that cost us.
What if… Josh Sargent hadn’t sent that text?
What if Sargent hadn’t sent that text?
Here’s the thing and this is possibly a hot take- we would be in League One now.
In a strange way, his exit galvanised the team as the likes of Jovon Makama and Mohammed Toure came in.
Do we miss his goals? Undoubtedly. But in a weird way I think we dodged a bullet.
What if… they hadn’t sacked Daniel Farke
The decision to sack Daniel Farke was strange because the board had stood by him in the past. I remember there were calls for him to go during his first season and in that instance we could have lost a great manager even sooner.
Unfortunately, we did not follow the example of Burnley who at that time had the foresight to keep Sean Dyche on and that allowed them to get promoted again.
What if… no Attanasio
What was the Norwich City alternative if the Attanasio takeover fell through?
There was talk of Delia Smith’s nephew taking over but I don’t think a succession of that nature would have been popular and there is a real chance the club would struggle without investment after not getting promoted to the Premier League for a couple of seasons.
Of course, this is all speculation. The best Norwich City what if we have now is – what if Philippe Clement can build on what he has already done for us?
