It felt so right. It went so wrong, so quickly for Liam Manning and Norwich City.
Born in the Fine City, reared on the Bungay borderlands and with an appealing back story he revealed at his summer unveiling about the first game he ever attended being Manchester United’s visit to Carrow Road in the Premier League glory years.
Getting back to the top flight was the allure to leave Bristol City and return home after securing a Championship play-off place last season that underlined his status as a coach to watch.
On a human level there was so much goodwill towards a man who prior to overseeing a first East Anglian derby defeat in 16 years responded to a question on pressure with a heartfelt reminder about enduring the toughest year of his life.
Manning and his wife had to bear unimaginably tragic family loss that while not diminishing his desire to succeed ensured he never lost sight of what really mattered.
No ego, no ebullient personality or colourful character. Manning was straight, honest and understated. In a self-deprecating moment in one press conference he labelled himself ‘boring’.
In what would be his last public engagement, after an eighth and final Carrow Road home defeat on the spin to Leicester City, he spoke about how deeply he cared for this club and how much he wanted to be the one to bring it success.
His words may have failed to inspire or capture the imagination of Norwich’s fan base but when he first walked through the Carrow Road doors, flanked by sporting director Ben Knapper, this was packaged as less about showmanship as substance.
Manning had improved every club and every squad he had worked with previously in a senior career that took him from MK Dons to Oxford and then Ashton Gate.
Knapper outlined Manning was the outstanding candidate because he had a demonstrable ability to extract more from the available resource. Brief though his time at Carrow Road was he achieved the exact opposite.
A sizeable summer transfer makeover was designed to equip Manning and his coaching team with the tools to attack the Championship’s top six.
Those recurring fitness-related issues undermined his bid to ‘short circuit’ the process. To lose the likes of Mathais Kvistgaarden and Papa Amadou Diallo before the second international break of the new campaign was a hammer blow. But Manning was equally unable to assimilate Thorup’s inheritance to shape something that hinted at a new identity and a new playing style.
Zoom out and Norwich’s recruitment is disappearing in ever decreasing circles. Knapper has presided over two very different head coach appointments, from the philosophical Dane to the pragmatic Manning, but any attempt to try and bridge the gap using a busy summer window only succeeded in a rebuild that appears a disjointed hybrid of the two.
A jarring collection of player profiles and a failure, in short order by Manning, to smooth the edges and achieve the joins. Falling between the gaps are players like Jacob Wright and Matej Jurasek, who were held up not all that long ago as poster signings for a new, exciting direction of travel.
There was nothing new or exciting or fresh about watching Manning’s Norwich labour to early season away wins and draws doused in sweat, perspiration and resilience rather than possession.
While the history-making endless losing run at Carrow Road marked an acceleration in the continuation of a toxic home trend that first started under Thorup. It quickly burnt any credit Manning earned in adversity at places like Portsmouth, Blackburn, Coventry and Stoke.
Knapper is clearly the common denominator. He is the footballing figurehead given autonomy and authority from Mark Attanasio and Norfolk Holdings. Now he will be seemingly entrusted with sourcing a third head coach in less than seven months.
Attanasio told a Pinkun podcast during the summer he had no hand in either Thorup’s sacking, or any real input into the decision to appoint Manning. ‘Liam was Ben’s first, second and third choice’ to paraphrase City’s principal owner when asked to cast some light on the finer points of that recruitment process.
Manning’s abrupt exit to the soundtrack of jeers and jibes about his brand of football, little more than five months into a four year contract, can only further erode Knapper’s standing. For many in the City fan base he should be following his second head coach appointment out of the exit.
But this feels existential now. It is bigger than the job status of either Manning or Knapper. Norwich’s fourth consecutive season in the second tier is in danger of not simply following the previous three, but tumbling into League One. The Premier League ‘goal’ restated on Friday in the release of the 2024/25 club accounts are just empty words when the reality looks and feels a world away.
Many fear a descent in the opposite direction if another head coach and a squad built largely on youth and limited Championship experience is unable to stabilise and move forward again.
If the steady Manning was not the answer, or previously the up-and-coming Thorup, who is?
