Norwich City

Norwich City vow to learn lessons from Premier League relegation

By Daniel Lewis, Senior Reporter | 12 May 2016

Norwich City release a statement outlining their intention to quickly move on from relegation to the Championship, starting with the appointment of a new chief executive.

Norwich City have stressed that "work is already underway to learn from the mistakes" of this season after the club's relegation to the Championship was confirmed on Wednesday night.

The Canaries' fate was sealed despite picking up a ninth win of the season when seeing off Watford at Carrow Road, as fellow strugglers Sunderland themselves picked up maximum points at home to Everton.

It means an instant return to the second tier for Alex Neil and his players, with questions still to be answered over the manager's future at the club following the drop out of the top flight.

Neil himself, speaking to reporters on Thursday afternoon, claimed that any talk over his current position can wait until after Sunday's final game of the season against Everton at Goodison Park.

The Canaries have also now released a statement, outlining their intention to hire a new chief executive following the departure of David McNally earlier this week.

"With last night's results confirming our relegation from the Premier League, the Norwich City board of directors and everybody at the club shares the pain and disappointment of our supporters," the statement read. "We are proud of our team's battling and spirited display in the 4-2 win over Watford in our final home game of the season.

"We were immensely proud and humbled as well by the passionate support our manager Alex Neil, his staff and the players received from the fans, throughout the game and after the final whistle. However, as a club, our number one objective this season was always to retain our Premier League status. We have fallen short of that target and work is already underway to learn from the mistakes that contributed to our failure this season.

"The immediate priority, as stated earlier in the week, is to recruit a new permanent chief executive to lead the club. The board and the whole club is fully focused on supporting and resourcing team-building plans for the summer transfer window and into next season. The Championship is a very tough league as we all know, but our firm objective will be to bounce back and achieve promotion to the Premier League at the first attempt, as we did in 2014-15."

Newcastle United and Aston Villa will also compete in the Championship next season after finishing either side of Norwich in the bottom three.