Norwich City deserve the award for biggest overachievers of the season after managing to finish in the upper half of the table on their first season since promotion. The Canaries were expected to struggle having achieved back-to-back promotions in the previous two season but they took to the Premier League pretty quickly and did not seem too overawed by the challenge despite most of the squad plying their trade in League One beforehand. A superb performance away at Chelsea, despite a 3:1 defeat in a game in which they looked the more likely winners before two late goals, give the Canaries the belief that they can compete and the first two wins in the league arrived in September against Bolton and Sunderland. More encouraging away displays at Liverpool and Manchester United enhanced the belief that these players jut get on with the game and are now afraid to take on much more illustrious opposition. Paul Lambert was doing a great job of maximising the resources at his disposal and his tactical manoeuvre was helping out too. Norwich never looked remotely in danger of being dragged into the bottom three at any point in the season and rarely had a poor run of form too. They were solid at home, getting an impressive win against Newcastle, and were very effective on the counter away from home, securing a number of decent results that way after the turn of the year. Grant Holt overcame a difficult start of the season when he was out of the side to become a real leader of the team as a target man while John Ruddy was superb on goal and was instilling real air of confidence among the back four. Basically Norwich were playing out the rest of the season from March onwards and their motivation levels only slightly dropped but they still delivered a couple of more memorable displays on the road, getting a win at Tottenham and drawing Arsenal 3:3 on their penultimate game of the season. Overall, that was a brilliant season for the club as they made giant strides forward and now will strive to avoid the second-season syndrome and beat the drop with keeping Lambert away from rival clubs paramount in that.
