Each home game, executive director Zoe Webber provides supporters with an update through her boardroom notes in our official matchday programme, OTBC.
Hello and welcome back to Carrow Road for our EFL Championship clash with Burnley.
This is our designated Greenest Game and we are delighted to continue with our commitment to helping to reduce carbon emissions in and around the stadium.
As part of our long-standing support for the EFL’s campaign you will notice a number of initiatives around Carrow Road as we aim to build a sustainable future for this football club and our fans.
This is our first Championship match at home since David Wagner was appointed head coach and we have been hugely impressed with the impact he has made since he joined. To score four goals on the road in successive matches, securing important victories against Preston and Coventry, has put us back into the play-off picture.
He has been impressed with the reaction of the squad and although there is always a period of adjustment with a new head coach, David has made an excellent start. Although it feels natural to want to build on this momentum, the enforced break allowed David to spend precious time with the players at the Lotus Training Centre.
The rigours of the Championship season means it is rare for a head coach to have a full week out on the practice pitches without preparing for a game. It has been an opportunity to get to know the players better and we know how much they are looking forward to today’s match with the league leaders.
This is also a moment to show our appreciation to some of the players who have left the club during the final days of the January transfer window.
We will always regard Todd Cantwell as one of our own, but the move to Rangers is a fresh start and we hope he goes on to have a great career at Ibrox.
Jordan Hugill also left us for Rotherham United and although his chances were restricted during his time at Norwich, he was a hugely popular figure here.
The transfer window brings unique pressures, but we have always evaluated the options carefully before making key decisions at such an important stage of the season.
Our recruitment team have done an excellent job to bring young Arsenal talent Marquinhos to Norfolk on loan, and he will, no doubt, add more quality to the squad in forward areas. He is very talented and we are sure that he will blossom under David’s careful guidance over the next few months.
David, along with our sporting director Stuart Webber, also made the decision to bring Christos Tzolis back from his loan spell at FC Twente to add more competition in the remaining games.
Finally, I would like to thank all our supporters at Coventry who gave such an emotional tribute to Amber Sheehy in the eighth minute. Amber, a massive Norwich fan, was diagnosed with a medulloblastoma brain tumour in 2019 and sadly left us, aged eight, on January 14.
Her parents Jon and Amanda, along with other members of the family, will be in the Director’s Lounge today and we are looking forward to spending some time with them.
They have been through so much and we know how important the support of the Norwich family has been to them.
Enjoy the game,
Zoe