Onel Hernandez said Norwich City’s season turned from frustration to belief after Philippe Clement took charge last November, with the club climbing out of the relegation zone and finishing in the top 10. Speaking at the Norwich City Fans Social Club event last Friday, Hernandez said the mood around the team changed sharply once Clement arrived.
Hernandez said he “realised the first time in my life how frustrating it is for a fan” after Norwich’s poor start, adding that “the season started very badly” and there was “so much negativity around that building.” Clement’s arrival, he said, brought structure and purpose back into the work every day at the training ground, where the players knew “why are you doing it and where you want to go.”
The scale of the recovery was clear in the numbers. Norwich collected more points than any other Championship side in 2026 and averaged close to two points per game, a rate that would normally put a team in the promotion conversation. Hernandez said the players were pushing for the playoffs and believed Norwich probably would have been there if there had been more games left.
That turnaround matters because Clement was appointed after a very bad start to the season, and what followed was not a short burst of form but a sustained lift that carried Norwich from danger into a respectable finish. Hernandez described Clement as a positive coach who asks for a lot of work from his players, and said that approach helped reset the club’s direction.
For Clement, the next stage is the one Norwich supporters will judge most closely. This will be his first full summer in charge, the kind of runway managers rarely get after a rescue job, and it gives him the chance to build on the platform that was missing when the season began. After a year that started in fear and ended in optimism, Norwich are no longer talking about survival. They are talking about what comes after it.
