Smith finally getting a tune out of his chirpy Canaries
THE DEAN EFFECT IS NOW IN FULL SWING
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BY JOHN WRAGG
THIS time last year Dean Smith’s Aston Villa had beaten Arsenal and were eighth in the Premier League.
It never got any better than that for him and nine months later he was sacked.
It looked like too much too soon when eight days later Smith rocked up as manager of Norwich. Villa went big time and got Steven Gerrard, Smith had no time at a club bottom of the Premier League with one win. Suddenly though the Canaries look as bright as a Michael Portillo jacket.
They are out of the relegation zone with an opportunity to make further progress on Wednesday against Crystal Palace and are in the FA Cup fifth round with a trip to Liverpool - for the second time in 10 years. A header by Kenny McLean (right) was enough to beat Wolves and the pieces are beginning to fit for Smith.
He has won four of his last five, two of them cup ties, is getting injured players back and confidence is growing.
“It feels good to be winning,” says McLean. “We’ve the belief, everybody around the club and the fans, because of the way we’re performing.
“We always knew the performance was there, we just didn’t do it on a consistent level. At times we weren’t sure of our quality - but we are now.”
Norwich have been as badly damaged by injuries as Boris Johnson by lockdown parties, but Billy Gilmour, who started, and Mathias Normann, off the bench, are two who are back.
“Gilmour’s been out a long time,” added McLean. “Him and Normann got minutes, so that’s going to strengthen us until the end of the season. We’ve missed them. We knew Wolves had plenty of quality, that’s why they are where they are in the Premier League, but we’ve been defending excellently recently. It means one goal is enough to win games now.”
For a club regarded as dead and buried by Christmas it is an excellent revival. Smith, as a Villa fan all his life, will have especially enjoyed this victory at Wolves.
“When you’ve up to nine players missing it makes it nigh on impossible to win a game,” he said. “But we’ve come through that and got players back, we’ve got our reinforcements.”
Wolves were dreaming of a cup run, but the excitement of a sold-out Molineux was diluted for the lack of a goal scorer. Raul Jimenez is not yet the player he was before his head injury and Fabio Silva looks worth £3.50 rather than the extravagant £35m Wolves paid.
“We wanted to continue in the competition, but Norwich scored one goal and we didn’t,” was boss Bruno Lage’s rather obvious comment. “Our dynamic wasn’t there.”