The ACN season review 2025/26 | OneFootball

We had high hopes before the season started, so was it a missed opportunity or a great escape? 

Paul Buller: Missed opportunity. Five more points would’ve put us in the play-offs, and while the shit-show at the start of the season is mostly responsible for that, next season Clement would be given pelters for dropping points to Oxford, Portsmouth and Swansea and missing out on the top six. Is that harsh? Maybe, but Clement has set new standards, and we can’t use the Manning excuse to let anyone off the hook. The players are good enough, the squad is big enough, Coventry and Sheff Utd did it from similar positions, so we have to move on from ‘thank goodness we didn’t get relegated’ and be more ruthless.

Nathan Hill: From the outset, we were told to expect a playoff/promotion push. That’s what Norwich City should be striving for “regardless of context”, as Ben Knapper put it at the end of last season, just after he’d sacked JHT for failing to achieve it during a supposedly transitional year one. In the end, we did make a semi-serious push for the top six but the vast majority of the season became about scrapping and surviving. Unlike the club during parts of 2025, I’m not moving any goalposts. This was not what was promised and therefore, it has to be regarded as a failure and a missed opportunity. The final two or three months, however, having fought for the necessary wins against the likes of Charlton, Blackburn, Oxford and West Brom, we began to see some proper football, an identity, and just what this squad and this manager (not the one we started the campaign with) can deliver. Replicate that from the get-go in August, and it goes without saying that Norwich will be challenging “regardless of context”.

Matthew McGregor: A single season where relegation, promotion and mid-table safety were all very realistic and feasible outcomes. It was a painful start, but we were more than compensated for that with a hell of a 2026. 

Ben Stokes: It was both, a sort of Schrödinger’s football season. Because it didn’t happen dramatically as a last-day survival, the great escape element may have been forgotten already, but it has been an astonishing turnaround under Big Phil. All the horribly familiar elements of a doomed season seemed to be in place, so to not only finish comfortably in mid-table but to also be in with a play-off chance until the penultimate game was incredible. With the form since Clement arrived, I can’t help but to turn to thoughts of missed opportunity. Making the managerial change earlier, when it was clearly already needed, could’ve given us enough games to pick up the points for a playoff finish. Even after Clement’s arrival, there were some lacklustre home performances against Swansea and Portsmouth  in recent weeks, and those Christmas period defeats against Watford and Stoke. Ultimately, though, it does feel churlish to dwell on this for too long. After that Stoke defeat, I was worried we’d run out of games to finish 21st, not looking at 7th.

Cameron Huggett: Can it be both? Given just how poor we were at the start of the season, the fact that we were able to pull ourselves out of the tailspin has to be the principal achievement. However, it’s hard not to look at a couple of matches at the end of the season and wonder what could have been if we hadn’t dropped points

None of us saw this coming – what did you get most wrong about the season?

CH: Looking back at the ACN pre-seaon predictions, it’s pretty clear that no-one should be listening to us. I was pretty convinced we’d be a play-off contender from the beginning of the season, which obviously went out the window fairly quickly.

NH: To refer back to what I said in our joint season preview: “It’ll certainly look a hell lot better, more structured and more adaptable, than any of the other fundamentally flawed and poorly-coached versions of Norwich City since the last relegation.” Well, it does now! But getting to that point has involved falling into a river of shit and somehow coming out smelling of roses. Big Phil was available at just the right time and fair play to our higher-ups for candidly presenting the project and attracting what is a Champions League level manager to a Championship relegation battle. In the end, as we played out the final few games, most of our season felt a bit like an episode of Top Gear (or The Grand Tour) where the miserable punishment car lurked in the background, but our beaten up banger somehow jump-started itself enough times to keep it at bay.

MM: I extolled the merits of Matěj Jurásek, which has earned me a one-season ban from participating in ACN season predictions. 

PB: For once, I got something right! I wrote this in our preview:  ‘I really can’t fathom if everything’s going to come together or if it’ll be a total disaster. Norwich haven’t been on a shopping spree this comprehensive in quite some time and they mostly haven’t gone well, but I have my fingers crossed that new owners and new methods will be a significant upgrade on previous attempts. Either that or none of the players will gel and Manning gets sacked in November.’ Blimey. I’m never that accurate.

BS: Well, I think I predicted that we’d finish second. A season of Phil and that might have happened. Crnac to be top scorer, Liam Manning as the heir to Nigel Worthington, Ipswich to be relegated – these are all things that I have said.

What was the most banterific moment of the season? 

PB: The Snake’s 23 minutes of chaos at Carrow Road. What a car-crash.

BS: As Kellen prepared to take a throw-in against Ipswich (Pen) FC in April, draped over the advertising board in the background of the live shot being broadcast to the nation was a gloriously defaced Nunez Norwich shirt. Some delightfully creative touches were included. The additional printed wording, such as “INBRED” and “WANKER” looked to have been printed in the official EFL typeface. Care was also taken to add some insults in Spanish, again, lovely attention to detail. The coup de grâce of the piece was the subtle cock and balls placed at a jaunty angle between the numbers, a timeless flourish.

MM: When the turnaround was in its early stages, the players were so out of fistpumps form that their attempts when we started winning were borderline slapstick. They’ve had plenty of practise since then, mind.

NH: Putting Jakov Medic up front for HALF AN HOUR is something akin to what the lads and I would do on pro clubs back in the day. If I were the opposition manager, I probably wouldn’t be too happy, but I also wouldn’t back myself against Philippe Clement in a fight! While the thick-skulled Chilean’s embarrassing little cameo at Carrow Road is another strong shout, he certainly isn’t “in my head”. Clearly, though, from the way he’s carried himself since slithering across the border, we’re still very much in his.

CH: Wasn’t it nice that our club was never a billboard for a room-splitting public figure this year?

What was your low point from the campaign?

CH: I took the loss at home in the derby particularly badly, as you might expect, given it last happened two decades ago.

BS: I think it was losing in the pouring rain at Pride Park in October. I didn’t even go, watching it from the safety of a warm pub. This was the worst game I watched all season – I’m stunned Derby almost made the playoffs as they were rotten on the night. And yet, after we wasted a load of promising positions in the first half, Derby scored early in the second and that was game over. Manning should’ve been relieved of his duties two games before this after defeat in the first derby, but the fact he was allowed to stagger on for another FOUR games after this one was ridiculous. Clement has saved a lot of people’s skin this season.

NH: Perhaps the saddest moment was my write-up of the Bristol City home game, which I knew would be my last for a while. It was a mic drop moment. I’d seen enough. I’d heard enough. I’d had enough. I had no idea where we were heading, besides ‘down’. That whole period in which we’d sold a significant player to our rivals, lost to said rivals for the first time since I sat my GCSEs (I’m 31), were playing soul-destroyingly bland (and losing) football, all while the club were taking aim at sections of fans – announcing the planned eviction of thousands from the River End to enhance the “matchday experience”, and using nothing but LinkedIn jargon as an explanation for everything – brought the club to its lowest ebb since 2009. That particular item will return to the agenda at some point – let’s not allow the more positive recent events to distract us from that.

MM: The snake defection. Not so much about him personally, but what it encapsulated at that time – a club lacking fight, grit or self-respect. 

PB: Quite simply, watching a bunch of highly talented (as we now realise) players looking like they didn’t know how to play football for weeks on end. I know we hype performances up and down all the time, but I’ve genuinely not seen a Norwich City team play so poorly as they did under Manning. It was terrible and baffling all at the same time.

What was your highlight?

MM: The win away at Wrexham. Makama’s goal, followed by a resolute determination to see the game out, was the moment where survival felt suddenly very real. 

BS: There were some really fun home wins against Southampton, Coventry and Sheffield United. But seeing us become so good away from home after years of struggling has been brilliant. The 5-0 demolition of West Brom was my personal favourite, coming in the middle of a “tough run” of three fixtures that we took 9 points from. Suddenly, everyone was chipping in with goals; there was a strength and confidence previously lacking, and we never looked back. I don’t really remember thinking about relegation at all after this game.

CH: For the men’s team, the trip to the Racecourse was up there as one of the best away trips I have ever been on. Great place, friendly people, nice ground, with a win to cap it off. But the consistently strong performances of the women’s team, rounding off the season with a deserved and well overdue promotion, is a welcome high point on which to close the book on 25/26.

PB: Watching those apparently incapable players turn into something really quite good. There is a joy in seeing players develop and show skills you didn’t know they had and PC was utterly brilliant at squeezing so much out of them. So many highlights, but particularly McConville, Mattsson, Makama. And what a season McLean had, considering he looked like he was ready for retirement in October.

NH: For the second of these season reviews in a row, the standout win was probably Coventry (H). While it did come during their wobbly period, the Sky Blues have been worthy champions, and it was a very good game between two good teams on the night. The second goal against Bristol City at Ashton Gate was probably the most satisfying moment, with Oscar Schwartau leaving a certain Sam Morsy for dust to tee it up.

What is your three-point to-do list for the club’s summer?

CH: 

PB: 

MM: 

BS: 

NH: