“We were looking good but now the injuries are starting to pile up.” That assessment, from the man in front of me in the queue for food at Cambridge Services, wasn’t actually about Norwich City.  

He was a Sunderland fan on his way back home from watching a 1-1 draw at Millwall. Service stations on motorways and A-Roads provide neutral territory for football supporters on Saturdays.

Tribalism gives way to mutual respect and understanding as notes are compared on who suffered the most in the name of following their team that day. And who still has the furthest to travel.  

My newfound Mackem mate told me about his week ahead. After Millwall (a) on Saturday, the Black Cats have West Brom (h) on Tuesday and are back on the road on Friday night to play Sheffield United (a).

Three big games in the space of seven days. It’s madness when you really think about it. We all understand that the vast sums of money ploughed into The EFL by TV broadcasters gives them freedom to move matches around to best suit their schedule. It’s not enhancing the experience for match going supporters though.  

Hang on, isn’t this column supposed to be about Norwich City? Yes, I know that, but rather than continue to highlight the Canaries issues with player injury and exhaustion I thought it was interesting to hear that other teams are feeling a similar strain.  

City rediscovered their mojo at West Brom in an exciting 2-2 draw on Saturday. Borja Sainz and Jack Stacey were their most energetic performers while Callum Doyle and Shan Duffy seemed re-energised.

All four had not been away during the international break and looked suitably refreshed.  

Shane Duffy looked back to his commanding best at The HawthornsShane Duffy looked back to his commanding best at The Hawthorns (Image: Paul Chesterton/Focus Images Ltd)

The returns of Angus Gunn, Onel Hernandez and Liam Gibbs from injury helped give the City squad a deeper look. However, Jose Corboba is now injured after playing for Panama during the break and while Kenny McLean’s suspension is finally over, Kellen Fisher is banned for the game against Plymouth tonight.

Johannes Hoff Thorup’s Norwich City project is starting to look like one of my DIY efforts. Bits of tape and sticking plaster are constantly being used to hold together whatever remains of his original vision. Unlike me, I’m sure Johannes will get his finished one day.  

There’s never much sympathy for any arguments about players playing too much football. They get paid handsomely for their troubles after all. Injuries and suspensions have and always will be part of the game.

That’s true of course but I wonder how realistic it is to expect a head coach to impose a new style on a squad quickly? Especially one designed to be played at the sort of high-octane levels we saw in the build-up to City’s two goals at West Brom.

Thorup seems to either have about 2/3 days between punishing Championship fixtures or left with two clear weeks but most of his players away on international duty.  

The overall quality of the product that is the Championship is probably impacted by the sheer quantity of it. A lot of squads seemed to be ravaged by long injury lists this season. The key to success in the division might be finding a way of keeping the most players available for the most games. 

I heard one of Team GB’s Olympic sprinters talk about the importance of avoiding injury and exhaustion. “The best ability is availability” was his way of summing up professional sport.  

It's a good point. Josh Sargent is a brilliant striker, one of the best in the division, but if we assume he doesn’t play again until January 1st, he’ll have been available to start 36 out of 70 Championship games since the start of last season.  

It’ll be interesting to see how many of Norwich’s future signings are in what we’ll call the Borja Sainz Venn diagram. Supremely talented but from a country that has such a good national team that international duty is unlikely in the short term.

See also Argentina’s Emi Buendia during his glittering spell as a Canary and Brazil’s Gabriel Sara last season.  

Those three lots of two-week breaks in the opening months of a gruelling Championship might come in handy. That Sunderland fan at Cambridge Services thought it was a good idea anyway.  

Flown from the Nest... 

The former Norwich City winger Adrian Forbes has embarked on quite the adventure.  

He’s recently taken over as sporting director and head coach of a team based in Texas called Texoma FC. It means he’s running a team that currently has no players, has never played a match but has recruited 4,000 season ticket holders.  

Texoma is a new professional team that will play a first competitive game in March. I interviewed Adrian last week. As well as building an entire squad and creating an infrastructure from scratch he mentioned that he might need to educate fans on how to behave at a game of what they will call ‘soccer’.  

It’s an interesting point. Many of the avenues of discussion between fans begin with shared history, favourite players, classic games and things like that. So what do you talk about when your team has never played before?  

All football teams will have been there at some point. Back in 1902 Norwich City supporters turned up to see them draw 1-1 with Harwich and Parkeston in their first ever game.  

I’m not sure how they got on in their second match but I’d like to think that even by then there was a group of fans complaining that this team wasn’t a patch on the one they used to watch seven days ago.