Chris Goreham: Call off sack watch on Norwich City boss David Wagner

They are probably still sat in the car park at Carrow Road now. I hope someone is checking in on them.

The clues were all there. A handy two-week international break, Norwich City on a miserable run of form and an apparent vote of confidence from the club owners. Football logic suggested that David Wagner was toast. A theory that gained further credence when the club announced that Stuart Webber was leaving and his replacement was coming in two weeks early.

Ben Knapper, it seems, wants to write his own scripts. This new sheriff isn’t the sort to ride into town, kick down the saloon doors at Colney and promise “this training ground ain’t big enough for the both of us”.

Whether Wagner and Knapper can become the next successful Norwich City double act depends very much on what happens over the next few weeks.

The new sporting director will take his perch at Carrow Road for the first time on Saturday with the Canaries, as always seems to be the case, at something of a crossroads.

Recent form hasn’t left Wagner with much credit in the bank. For his honeymoon period he can probably only afford a night at a B&B in Skegness rather than a trip to the Caribbean.

A win against struggling QPR would mean two straight victories, a bit of breathing space for Wagner and the merest hint that a corner might actually have been turned. Key players like Ashley Barnes and Angus Gunn will be nearing a return. Perhaps things will actually be looking up.

Anything less and the heavy clouds of doubt about the head coach that a 3-2 win at Cardiff weren’t enough to blow away will bubble to the surface once more. With trips to Watford and Bristol City to follow we might then get to see how itchy Knapper’s trigger finger really is.

Knapper says he’s had numerous conversations with Wagner in the lead up to taking the job. With all due respect to those good enough to contact BBC Radio Norfolk on a match day I think the Wagner/Knapper chats are the Canary Calls we all really want to hear.

The sporting director’s job at any club is to set the footballing philosophy.

They may not be in charge of tactics or team selection on a match day but they do plot the identity. With a decade and a half working at Arsenal under his belt you can bet that Knapper will have arrived with a clear idea of what sort of a club he wants to run.

How much will Wagner have to adjust to fit in with his new bosses’ way of thinking? There is no doubt that he will have rocked up on Monday with no shortage of feedback on recent performances. Hs reputation is one that suggests a good command of the data driven approach to football analysis. That may well come in handy but you don’t have to look too far into the underlying numbers to know that Norwich City expect to be doing better than 16th place in the Championship.

It's not realistic to expect radical change when Knapper’s Norwich City run out onto the pitch on Saturday. It may only be January when the transfer business starts that we really discover his theories on why the Canaries have struggled so badly just lately. That is unless he’s not convinced by the job that David Wagner has been doing, that’s one thing he can act on before the next window opens.

Wagner watch is on hold for now. Let’s see how things develop. Which is not what those reporters in the car park, still hoping for a shot of the head coach emerging from the ground with his belongings in a cardboard box, will want to hear.

Always an angle…

I have worked in the local media in this part of the world for long enough to know that there is a Norfolk link to any big story.

Take Australia’s victory at the Cricket World Cup. Glenn Maxwell hammered a double century in a vital victory over Afghanistan to take them towards the final. The same Glenn Maxwell who, as a teenager, spent a summer playing in the Norfolk Alliance for Saham Toney.

It’s a rare joy when a Norfolk grassroots club captures one of the greats either on the way up or on the wat down. Many Norwich City heroes have ended their playing days on the non-league pitches of Norfolk. Martin Peters, Dave Stringer and Robert Fleck are among those who loved playing enough to keep going for as long as they could.

My own personal favourite was the spell that Luther Blissett had with Fakenham Town in the mid-90’s. An England international and former AC Milan star turning out in what was then the Jewson League. It must be a unique career trajectory.

It happens less often now. You could argue that the wages paid today mean that footballers don’t need to extend their careers beyond what is comfortable.

However, all of those mentioned above can’t have been paid life-changing amounts to play non-league football. Perhaps the increasing quality and depth of sports science means that players can actually wring every inch out of their careers at the top.

There is the odd exception. I bet Grant Holt still gets a good reaction when he turns out for Wroxham.