Norwich City’s Alex Neil is a man determined to right his own wrongs

It has been a tough few weeks at Norwich City, but the way Alex Neil has dealt with everything thrown at him has only enhanced my opinions of him.

Following a transfer window that some fans considered disastrous, it would have been easy for him to hide behind a generic answer like “we tried,” but he was brutally honest.

Neil reiterated the stance of his Chief Executive, Jez Moxey, by saying that the club did not have the funds to get who they wanted to get and would have to sell to buy.

Neil was appointed Norwich boss in January 2015. Just several months later, he guided the Canaries to the Premier League after winning the Championship play-off final – Photo: Marc Atkins / Offside.

A lot of Norwich fans were not pleased by this, but I feel it is a healthy reminder that our club is in very safe hands – both on the pitch and behind the scenes.

There has been a theory going around that we should have a lot of money floating about purely because we were in the Premier League last season, but this is false.

Many fans forget the amounts we spent in January on Steven Naismith and Timm Klose, with both arriving for large fees and you would suspect they have decent wages too.

The attempts to sell Naismith on deadline day were unsuccessful, but I do not think it was a disastrous window by any stretch of the imagination.

The fact that most of the squad stayed is hugely positive, but always meant that we were unlikely to spend what the likes of Aston Villa could.

In our Championship campaign two years ago, our spending was enabled by the sales of Leroy Fer and Robert Snodgrass – which raised a sum of £15m – allowing us to rebuild.

It is also worth noting that the values of players has gone through the roof, with £15m getting you Cameron Jerome, Lewis Grabban and leaving some change to spare back then.

Nowadays that would only get you one striker as the cases of Jonathan Kodjia and Ross McCormack have proved, despite neither ever kicking a ball in the Premier League.

I would argue that for some fans it is not about who the club spend money on, but that we should flaunt our wealth at every possible opportunity.

My response is to let the others spend and I am sure we will slip under the radar. Naturally, Villa have given themselves a massive bounty as they’re the team everyone wants to beat.

They have put a fair bit of pressure on themselves to succeed, whereas I do not think that we have that kind of burden on ourselves.

Forward Naismith was linked with a move to Sunderland on deadline day – Photo: Mark Leech / Offside.

The noises from the City manager echo those sentiments and he has placed a lot of faith in his young side, even opting to leave Naismith out of his squad entirely against Cardiff City.

He has also shown a lot of faith in the Murphy twins – Josh and Jacob – which is having an evident impact on their confidence and the club will reap the rewards.

There are still players such as Sergi Canos and Alex Pritchard who we are yet to really see in action, with both players giving fans plenty to be excited about from early signs.

Neil has handled everything immensely well and he has crucially not played all his cards at once, and I feel there is a lot more to come from this City team.

It really is very early days still at the minute and very hard to predict the final outcome, but Neil has a superb record at this level and also has a point to prove.

He felt he could have done better last season and has that determined look of a man who wants to right his own wrongs.