The ACN 26/27 Season Preview

Best case scenario for this season?

Ben Stokes: Things will have to go fairly wrong at both West Ham and Wolves for them not to be the ones to keep up with. Hopefully we can be in with the best-of-the-rest tier, with the bonus of being  Clement battle-ready from the start this time. A place in the expanded play-offs certainly seems doable.

Cameron Huggett: We continue our impressive form from the end of the last campaign and win promotion back to the top flight, likely through the playoffs.

Nathan Hill: Whisper it quietly but, bar the injuries, dare I say it has been a relatively drama-free summer? We have every right to be bullish this time around. The barrier of entry to the play-offs may have been lowered, but I believe we are/will be legitimately tall enough to ride this time – unlike previous campaigns where we’ve tried to sneak in, or have done so arse backwards. 

More teams will be mathematically in the hunt come the last few weeks – we will be one of them, but this time everyone will be believing.

Nick Hayhoe: It’s 5.30pm on 1 May 2027 and I am in a packed pub somewhere in Westish London. Just as the chant of “Campeones, campeones, olé, olé, olé!” dies down among the crowd, someone wearing an Aviva era shirt still manages to be heard complaining very loudly and in a very strong Norfolk accent about the cost of the pint of Madri they have just ordered.

Paul Buller: Scandal and malcontent spread like a virus among the recently relegated clubs, NCFC players pick up ‘knocks’ rather than A&E-inducing injuries and Mathias Kvistgaarden scores 45 goals to lead us to a record championship-winning points tally. These things are all possible, believe me.

Matthew McGregor: The best case scenario is 100 points and 100 goals. Is that a realistic case? Who knows — and that’s what makes the Norwich way so fun. I wouldn’t be stunned if, with a relatively fit squad picking up where we left off last season, we finished anywhere from champions to 8th spot. 

Worst case?

BS: Even more injuries, players get pinched before the window closes, Clement’s intensity turns into player burn-out.

CH: Outside of the clichés of ‘anything can happen’ relegation doom prophesising, a stagnation in mid-table mediocrity would be a hugely disappointing outcome.

NaH: The gap between this team’s floor and its ceiling should be much narrower with Philippe Clement in charge from the get-go. The true doomsday scenario only occurs if he’s enticed elsewhere, or walks following a rather drastic turn of events – such as a major deadline day sale behind his back. 

If that happens, you’d be hoping that all the players who’ve improved markedly since working with him can stay on that upward trajectory – and not revert back to what they were. 

NiH: For the love of god Ben, if someone from that lot tries to ring to ask about a player’s availability, just don’t answer the phone and put your Out of Office on. Please.

PB: West Ham, Wolves and Burnley are so good that the rest of us don’t get a look in. More players suffer ACL injuries and the Supporters’ Trust are forced to stand outside Carrow Road shaking buckets for donations of cruciate ligaments. Norwich’s tricky opening fixture list turns the natives restless and PC heads off to the Prem.

MM: An injury disasterclass leaves us floundering from the get go, with bigger clubs coming calling for our best players and the head coach by the time Christmas shopping gets under way. 

Basket case?

BS: The treatment room? It would make a nice change to have a season that didn’t keep featuring the word “unprecedented” in relation to injuries.

CH: There’s always an outside chance that West Ham utterly fails to adjust to championship football, which would be quite funny to see. 

NaH: Would’ve probably been an accurate way of describing us up until November last season. There will not be a repeat. You can always rely on a handful of Championship clubs to press the panic button, possibly multiple times. I’m taking the bet of over of 2.5 Watford managers to be replaced this season.

NiH: The Colney Vegetable Patch. Considering our luck with injuries, that thing must have disturbed some ancient Iceni burial ground and put a curse on all of Colney.

PB: We finish eighth and win the playoff final against a team that finished 30 points ahead of us.

MM: Thoughts and prayers for the medical staff. They’ll be under more scrutiny than anyone in their position than any time since Tim Sheppard wore his very short shorts that time.

Away game you’re most looking forward to?

BS: Would have said West Ham but Boxing Day at Westfield and Greater Anglia’s no festive trains policy is a combo to be avoided.

CH: Lincoln, a city close to my heart. Having lived there as a student for four years, I have some really fond memories of the Cowley era. Sincil Bank usually has a cracking atmosphere as well.

NaH: My second team (he says, reluctantly, knowing it’s frowned upon) are Lincoln City having enjoyed my uni years there. Having written many a match report for the student paper analysing dull draws and defeats against the likes of Gateshead, Guiseley and Woking at a half-empty Sincil Bank, to be going there for a Championship fixture a decade on is quite surreal. 

Unfortunately for me, many others also have this one circled. Couldn’t get near a match pick. But I have been going back a few times a season – I’ll find a way to get in!

NiH: The League Cup game against Milton Keynes will be, irritatingly, the 6th time we’ve played them since they stumbled into existence. On the other hand we haven’t played Wimbledon in a competitive game since they were reformed, so a January FA Cup away trip to Plough Lane would be nice.

PB: West Ham if they aren’t doing very well as it’ll be half full and we should be taking thousands. Annoying that it’s the one fixture we can go virtually stadium to stadium by train so I’m hoping, for the only time ever, that Sky move it to the following day so we don’t have to drive.

MM: It’s got to be Lincoln City. Beautiful city, second best cathedral in the country, great pubs by all accounts and a tightly packed stadium with good fans.

Who’ll win the Barry Butler this year?

BS: Pelle Mattsson – picking up where he left off last season by continuing to ping goals in and generally oozing class all over the shop.

CH: Always a tough one to predict. Provided he is still in the business of scoring screamers, Mattsson he is more than capable of positioning himself firmly in fans’ good books.  

NaH: The player who survives the season without suffering a significant injury. Nowadays, we expect that to be a very small group. I’ll back Pelle Mattsson and Kenny McLean, again, to be in that group. I’ll go for Mattsson, predicated on an increase in his goal contributions.

NiH: Here’s a fun game to play. A game I call “Teemu or Emi”: which player winning the Barry Butler would mean that we must have also been promoted? I.e. what player performing at their absolute best all season would lift the side in the biggest way to the point we must have been promoted? Pelle Mattson for me, Clive.

PB: I know I want it not to be Kenny, because if it is, it means no one else has stepped up, and we have a hell of a squad that should throw up loads of contenders. Kenny it is, then.

MM: I predict the fans will go with Kenny McLean again but I tell you what, I would love it – I would love – if Pelle Matsson stormed it this season.

Player you most want to have a good season?

BS: Would love to see Clement get a tune out of Ante Crnac and for him to step up. The same goes for Jurasek – could a pre-season, outside of the boot assist, be a sign of spectacular things to come? Probably not.

CH: I’d love to see Touré continue his red-hot goalscoring form. 

NaH: Vladan Kovacevic is the first name that comes to mind, because it feels as though he is yet to win over many fans and he will, barring injury or suspension, play all 46 league games. 

There were one or two ricks last season, as we were told to expect, but also plenty of match-winning or match-saving saves – none better than Wrexham away, at a crucial point in the recovery period. I’m not quite a full Kovacevic “stan” (as the kids say), but I’ve seen the alternative. It’s not pretty. 

There are plenty of others. If Mattsson does have a Barry Butler season, it’s hard to imagine this team not achieving what it wants to achieve. Jovon Makama, when he’s back, could evolve to a frightening level this season.

NiH: I am going to cheat and say two players in Darling and Corboda. Been a good while since a proper centre back pairing.

PB: Last season Mirko Topic showed, for about 35 minutes, that he is the athletic brickhouse our midfield has needed for years. This year he will show us he’s the Championship’s Rodri.

MM: I just want them to stay healthy. I’d take that over any single stand out performance. I would love for Fisher to get his due. I’d love if Brooks became a fan favourite. And I really want to see Makama banging them in again. 

If everything were to be exactly as you’d want it to be, how bad would Ipswich’s season be?

BS: Well they only need to win two home games for it to be better than their last effort and I have a horrible feeling they may be better off without McKenna this time around. But it won’t stop me hoping for bankruptcy, liquidation and Portman Road’s replacement with a data centre.

CH: Worse than Derby’s. Not only would they fail to win all season, there would be a constant news cycle about how their presence in the top flight is fundamentally damaging the global image of the English game. By Christmas, their fair-weather fans would have given up and Portman Road would have returned to its natural, half empty, state.

NaH: What a sad little life Ipswich, enjoy the money, I hope it makes you happy and that you spend it on some grace and decorum – or on a striker not exactly renowned for being clinical, such as Daizen Maeda. 

This won’t look much different to last time. In fact, Gary O’Neil will become their Dean Smith figure. They’ll still be losing, but it won’t be with their much-adored manager and squad this time – so there’ll be less patience among the fanbase, and it’ll feel even more bleak and soul-destroying to sit through.

I hope, however, that the Chilean arseclown they signed last summer can show us all what a tremendous Premier League player he is. I’m sure he won’t get immediately outclassed, and literally out-classed, by every other midfielder in the league. 

Oh and those penalties that are such a key component of the gameplan? You don’t get those in the Premier League. It’ll be an interesting race to the bottom between themselves and Hull. 

NiH: Nigel Farage loses the Clacton by-election to Count Binface just before Ipswich go on 15 match losing streak and do not win a point by Christmas. On 25 December HMRC discover Ipswich have £1bn in unpaid taxes and wind the club up, take down Portman Road brick by brick to sell it off and then plough the earth with salt so nothing can return. To add insult to injury, at the very last minute before they are wound up, it is revealed that their 1962 title win is implicated in the English football match fixing scandal of the early 60s and is declared null and void by the Football League.

PB: Their season will be awful, really awful. They’ll get through three managers then bring in Sam Allardyce in a last-ditch desperate attempt to salvage some pride and avoid Derby’s all time points-low. The Snake will be sent off six times. As punishment for his foul-mouthed open top bus parade, the FA will force Mark Ashton to eat the rotting contents of Delia Smith’s food recycling bin live on YouTube.

MM: We’ve enjoyed watching them flop abysmally so to mix it up I’d like them to do well enough that their fans are full of hope before they get relegated in an utterly heartbreaking fashion on the last day of the season.  

Words of advice for Philippe Clement

BS: Get rid of that grey coat. There’s a tracksuit manager inside of PC, yearning to be free.

CH: Make sure any new signings have practiced their óles.

NaH: I don’t think Big Phil needs any advice from a keyboard warrior like me but I would love to hear what he thinks of the Belgian Monk as a drinking establishment – if he can ever set time aside from watching clips of wingers from obscure European leagues.

In terms of his job, just keep doing what you’re doing. He has struck the perfect tone so far in rebuilding the fragile confidence of this previously much-maligned squad and, having achieved the necessary short-term results to haul ourselves out of danger, we started seeing them play with so much more personality at the very end of the season. Let’s now see that version of us for 46 games and see just where it lands us in the table. I’m thinking top 8 at least.

NiH: Try the local pubs, they are excellent.

PB: Could you try playing Kvistgaarden on the left of the front three? I’m convinced he’ll be brilliant there.

MM: Run ‘em up and down Kett’s hill. That’ll sort the medical nonsense out.

Words of advice for Mark Attansio

BS: Build a new City Stand and invest in bionic anterior cruciate ligament technology.

CH: Don’t worry about Brewers (it’s about time the Cardinals had a decent shot at post-season anyway), and focus all your energy on our title charge. 

NaH: The Club Wembley seats are apparently very lovely. Before then, fully scrap the idea of evicting fans out of the River End, keep the away end where it is. If the club desperately needs more corporate hospitality, they can house it in an expanded City Stand in the near future. Oh and more Canary Call appearances would go down a treat.

NiH: You got away with the first few months of the last season from what happened next. But make no mistake, it was the most catastrophic half a season for Norwich City since 2008. Don’t ever, ever, ever, ever, ever let that happen again.

PB: Maybe publish the review of the physio set up you promised?

MM: Nothing in life is free.

One thing Andy Burnham could enact this season to stop football disappearing up its own arse

BS: Ban VAR, price caps on tickets, get gambling/dodgy crypto companies fully out of the game. But if it has to be one thing, no VAT on yellow open-topped buses.

CH: Copa Mundials to become mandatory playing attire.

NaH: Anything to make football more affordable and accessible. A ticket price cap would be great. Throughout Euro 2024, however, those who could show a valid match ticket were entitled to a free public transport pass – trains, trams, buses, what have you. While I wouldn’t expect that to be rolled out everywhere around the country all season long, fans currently are being asked to pay literally hundreds to travel from shithole to shithole on trains – without being guaranteed a seat, any degree of comfort or getting there on time. Why is it so hard to simply get to games? Also we need that football regulator to come in asap.

NiH: Nothing anyone can do at this point I’m afraid. In a scary similarity to the fact we are now really seeing the devastating effects of climate change, we have all been screaming this was going to happen to football for at least the last 30 years unless something was done. But no one could be bothered to listen then. And they still can’t really be bothered now. 

PB: Just keep trolling Infantino.

MM: No comment.