In the cold, modern, minimalist d’ecor of Norwich City’s corporate hospitality box, Stuart Webber cuts a contrastingly warm and affable demeanour. He oozes confidence, from the reassuringly purposeful tone of his voice to his engaging and knowledgeable answers, it’s perhaps obvious why Norwich sought to appoint him.

This is a real football man, someone who possesses the sporting acumen and expertise many have stated has been missing from the club for some time. Webber was gracious enough to give Along Come Norwich his full time and attention and the offer of a 10 minute chat quickly turned into a much longer conversation, such was the depth of the answers he wanted to convey.

It’s clear in his two short weeks at the club he’s settled well and is pleased with what he’s seen so far, yet he’s under no illusions about the task in hand:

“It’s been a good two weeks, people at the club have been good to me. The infrastructure is decent and there’s loads to work with. At Huddersfield we had nothing in terms of infrastructure really, it was like a League One club in the Championship, that’s not to disrespect them, that’s what it is. Here there’s lots more infrastructure – in fact in some areas too much, I look at some things and think ‘do we need that much really?’ Maybe we got a little bit lost in the Premier League.

I’ve been hugely impressed, but at the same time some areas have surprised as well….

The squad wage bill is higher than I’d probably imagined and maybe some of the salaries are a bit higher than what I would have expected.

One thing I would say it’s that’s never the players’ fault, they get paid what they get paid and no doubt some of them would have earned it, as a general thing though we need to trim that a little bit to be able to grow the squad again. That’s a bigger job than I probably originally anticipated but at the same time a challenge and something to get stuck into.

Apart from that there’s not really been any real surprises, I knew what I was coming into and Steve (Stone) did a good job in telling me what it is and he’s been very accurate with the assessment. There’s not been any nasty surprises, but at the same time there’s maybe some bigger challenges than I originally thought, especially around the first-team squad.”

In Webber’s short time at the club he’s confident he’s built up an accurate idea of the playing staff he has at his disposal and what now needs to happen to reinvigorate a team that’s, by their own high standards, failed this season:

“I’m very clear on that, even before I entered the door in truth, and now I’ve had time to observe three games really closely, observe training sessions closely, observe people around the training ground closely; staff and players, I’ve got a real clear picture now and fortunately there’s still two weeks to go, so certainly by the time we wrap up against QPR it will be nailed clearly. I’m really close now, but by then there’ll be nothing which isn’t known.



There’s definitely a really good base, I look at some of the players in the squad and think they’re really good players. There’s some really good young players, exciting players, players that I think any team in the top 8 of this league would take.

Then I look at some glaring holes, this is a club where we don’t own a left back at first team level. We’ve got a number of number 10’s but we don’t own a left back, that’s not me speaking out of turn or criticising anyone. Everyone can see if you write out the squad list that we’ve got alot of that, loads of them, but not many in these areas. So I think it’s clear, it shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone, we know we need to strengthen areas, but there’s some real positives.

If I look at the three games I’ve been here we’ve scored 11 goals, that takes some going, and yet we could have scored 15, 16, even 17, its been unbelievable. So I think there’s some real quality, and some glaring holes and I think that’s been pretty well publicised.

A lot of the decisions to make are easy ones, whoever was sat in my chair or the head coach’s chair, I’d be gobsmacked if the decisions we end up making were different, within reason everyone would come to the same conclusion. I don’t think there’s going to be many surprises.”

When pressed on the left back situation and Mitchell Dijks, Webber was unsurprisingly non-committal about the Dutchman’s future: “We have to consider that it’s all well and good people wanting to stay, but does it fit them financially and for us? I’m sure people wouldn’t want to stay if it wasn’t within a financial framework that wasn’t right for them.

Mitchell’s done well on his loan. Has he smashed it? I wouldn’t go that far. He’s done reasonably well and I’m sure if we can get to a deal we’ll try and get to a deal, but at the same time its where he comes in in terms of being realistic with the finances, because going forward it will ultimately come down to money. It’s not about the level of player because we know we’d like him, he’d want to stay, but it’s what it looks like financially.” The former Huddersfield was also clear he has an abundance of riches at the top end of the pitch, and that may prove to be a difficult juggling act in the coming weeks and months. This may mean a waiting game for the likes of James Maddison: “I think there’ll be exits all through the squad. I think that’s natural. The squad needs freshening up, everyone can see that, we are heavy in certain areas so for example James Maddison, if he isn’t in the team next year he can’t have another year of a loan which was far from perfect in my opinion and then come back into a club where so far he’s played fourteen minutes of football for the first team. That can’t happen again, because before you know it James Maddison will be 21, 22 and we’ll be going ‘how many games has he played?’ We have to get a clear plan for James – whether that be in our team next season or whether that’s maybe he needs to go and gain more experience to wait for his chance, because Naismith, Hoolahan and Pritchard are top players. So he’s got top players in his way, it’s not like he’s got someone in the way who’s easy to dislodge. In that case we’ve got to do what’s best for James and what’s best for the club.



I’ve had a couple of conversations with him and his agent and we need to work out over the course of pre-season where does he fit in. He can’t be stuck in no-man’s land. I think that’s what kills young players is when they’re stuck in that in-between where they’re not playing but they’re doing a bit with the first team, young players can lose a year, two years of their career where other players of the same age are playing game after game and suddenly they’ve got a hundred games under their belt; we’ve got to make sure that doesn’t happen. If you can’t get them in your team but you can get them first team football in a good club, with a good manager that’s important. We can’t have them going somewhere where they have three days off a week and they’re not fit, we need them to go to a loan club which will have a similar schedule and the way that we do it, otherwise that might not develop them. Josh (Murphy) was at MK Dons with Karl Robinson – a great move in my opinion, and Jacob went to Coventry which was a great time in terms of different pressures that the club was under. I think both of them would say that was unbelievably beneficial to them and has proven beneficial to Norwich. There’s been some great practice with those two, and we have to do more of that.”