Norwich City Under-18s coach Greg Crane says his players will have learned valuable lessons from this season, despite the campaign not going to plan results wise for his team.
The Canaries ended the season with a 4-0 defeat away at West Ham United on Saturday morning and, having finished bottom of the table with three wins from 26 matches, it has been a tough year for the under-18 players.
However, two of those wins have come in the last six matches, highlighting the team’s improvement from the opening day defeat to Southampton.
“It has been tough season for the boys,” said Greg. “At the start, I think people still forget that we had lot of Covid-19 issues and protocols in place and sometimes we were training with two or three players in the build-up to a game.
“So, in terms of experiences for the lads it has been really good. They have had some tough times, especially results wise, but slowly throughout the season they have kept working, kept trusting the process, kept trying to do the right things and trying to up their game.
“I think the second half of the season they have done a lot, lot better in games and in performances. That is with the under-18s or the under-23s when some of them have stepped up. We have had a real mixed bag of good, bad and brilliant. Long term it is good, short term it is a little bit of pain, but I am sure the lads will have taken lessons from this season that they can use going forward.”
One of those lessons is resilience. The two victories the side have got in recent weeks were against Brighton & Hove Albion and Tottenham Hotspur and in both matches the players had to battle back from at least a goal down to get a result.
“It is really easy when things are going swimmingly for people in general,” added Greg. “When it is tough and things are not going the way you want, that is when you find out about characters. That is when you find out people, players and staff. You find out who wants to be a part of it, who wants to help and who is trying to drive.
“You find out which players want to do more and are saying ‘I am not happy with this, and I am not settling for that’. In terms of those things, it is a real credit to them as young men, in terms of them learning the way. It is nice for them to learn early in their careers that football can slap you in the face and it is how you deal with that and what things you can do to move forward.
"I have seen an improvement in their game, individually and collectively, which is kind of what our job us as coaches and their job as players, in terms of helping them get into somebody’s first team at some stage.”