The 35-year-old won promotion with the club from a similar situation before, and can do the same again...
Talk of Norwich running away with the Championship title certainly seems a long time ago.
The Canaries have lost five league matches on the bounce and have not won since their 3-1 home victory over rock-bottom Rotherham, six matches ago.
That result put them a point clear of Huddersfield and current leaders Newcastle at the top of the pile.
Yet little over a month since their ascent, grumbling has set in.
With Norwich slipping to eighth in the table – two points away from sixth – the criticism is understandable.
But any suggestion that manager Alex Neil should be ousted is not.
It is, after all, a little under two years since he left Hamilton Academical to take over a stuttering Norwich side in a similar position to now.
The 35-year-old inherited an underperforming squad, which was sitting in seventh place and had accrued just 1.6 points per game.
In the remaining 21 matches, the Scot transformed the team.
They finished third in the table – just three points shy of Watford in the final automatic promotion spot – and managed an average of 2.2 points per game.
He secured promotion via the play-offs just weeks later.
Considering that this season is only 18 fixtures old, therefore – seven games earlier than the stage Neil arrived in his debut year – there is plenty of opportunity for improvement.
And the current squad are certainly capable of lifting their game.
They have already shown as much this season, winning seven out of eight matches immediately prior to entering the slump that they currently find themselves in.
The majority of the squad that played in the Premier League still feature heavily, including Cameron Jerome, Robbie Brady and Steven Naismith.
So now that the players are suddenly underperforming, it is surely reasonable for them to shoulder some of the criticism instead of their manager.
Yet with one look at Norwich City’s Twitter hashtag, that does not seem to be the case.
Indeed, plenty of fans would happily see the back of Neil.
Fortunately for the Scot, though, the board at the club have traditionally shown extended loyalty to their managers, despite any stumbles.
In an environment where the average lifespan of a job was calculated at 1.23 years last June, Neil is only the Canaries’ eighth manager in 16 years.
Indeed, it took Bryan Gunn a relegation to League One and a 7-1 drubbing from Colchester on the opening day to get the sack.
Speaking before their defeat against Derby, chairman Ed Balls was effusive over his man.
“He knows he’s got the backing of the board.
“We’ve worked with him very closely for a couple of years, we know his quality, we know his integrity and determination and we know he can do it.”
That is a sentiment that will eventually prove profitable.
