Todd Cantwell slams Norwich City treatment in interview

The midfielder has opened up on his relationship with sporting director Stuart Webber, why he was pushed into the under 23s and how his situation became untenable - leading to a permanent move away to Rangers in January. 

Cantwell has become a key player at Ibrox and has rediscovered his love for football after a spell at Carrow Road that ended poorly. He was an academy graduate and played 129 games for the club. 

He has spoken in depth to the Beautiful Game Podcast about how his spell in Norfolk deteriorated to the point of no return. 

- Below are a host of topics spoken about during the 1 hour 45 minute podcast as spoken by Cantwell

Todd Cantwell has spoken about his relationship with sporting director Stuart Webber. (Image: Paul Chesterton/Focus Images Ltd)

On his relationship with Stuart Webber:

If I’m being completely honest, me and Stuart never had a relationship. That might seem weird because he was the sporting director of a club when I was there but, for whatever reason, we never had a relationship. It’s a weird one. It’s one that being in football now at the age of 25, I look around and think ‘that was not normal’. My relationship was solely with the manager at Norwich so Daniel Farke was the one that saw me train and said ‘why is he not in the first team?’. He gave me my debut and I played loads of games under him, our relationship always grew. Whether that is why Stuart felt he didn’t need to have a relationship with me because of Daniel I don’t know, but he had a relationship with other players.

Did the Norwich relationship become toxic?:

On reflection and being at Rangers now, it was a strange relationship considering it was a club I’ve been at since I was 11 years old. I’ve done an array of community stuff, and I enjoyed it. It was my town. I am a message to the young boys that you can come through, you can be expressive, you can be yourself, you can have blonde hair, you can drive a nice car, and you can come from Norwich. You don’t need to be from Chelsea to do that. I had an amazing relationship with the owners, Delia and Michael and their family. They were all immensely proud of me growing up. When I got into the first team, they invited my family to a game. It’s not normal for owners to do that. My relationship with Daniel was very strong. My relationship with the academy, the groundstaff, the chefs – I loved everyone at that club but there was one important person that I didn’t have a relationship with. That is where the narrative went from ‘Todd Cantwell loves playing for Norwich, Todd Cantwell is an expressive character that we need to advise and nurture’ to ‘ Todd Cantwell wants to leave. Todd Cantwell is lazy, Todd Cantwell wants his contract to run out. Todd Cantwell wants more money.’ I can say, with my hand on my chest, I never said any of that. I never turned around to that football club and said ‘I want to leave today’. It never came out of my mouth.

What happened behind the scenes?:

There was a lot going on. It’s not a situation I’ve spoken about publicly, but I went through an immensely difficult period off the pitch. We had started the second Premier League season badly and I played the first four games. The manager told me he didn’t want me to leave and that he wanted to be the man now Emi (Buendia) had gone. I was in such a good place mentally. I didn’t want to leave. I had a manager who loved me and I was playing in a style I loved. I had a family issue off the pitch where I had a couple of weeks away from the training ground, which was all green-lighted by the football club. There are things in life that are more important than football. I had a traumatic time, but I was ready to train. I built up a bit of fitness. The manager pulled me and asked if I was okay. I told him I was ready to play. I had 10 days of solid training and the manager left me out of the squad after having that conversation. I went to see him a day before the game, and that was a bad idea, but I asked him why I wasn’t in the squad. He didn’t want to speak to me. They drew 0-0 at home to Brighton. Then I got a text from the assistant manager saying ‘you’re in the 23s now for the next couple of weeks because your fitness isn’t right yet and you have personal issues going on’. I was like, what?! We had spoken about this. I was bemused and that was backed up by the sporting director. It was the downfall of my time at Norwich. I spent two to three months in the 23s setup. After what I have achieved at Norwich, it was barbaric. I felt like I had all my respect, honour and achievements stripped away from me. I was labelled as a bad egg. It was crazy. I wasn’t allowed in the first team dressing room and wasn’t allowed in at the same time as the first team. I hadn’t done anything. I’m not stupid. I wouldn’t put myself in that position in football. You don’t go against the manager and you can’t always say how you feel in football because if you offend the wrong person in football and you’re in trouble. It was a crazy narrative that got spun. Your voice is taken away from you. You say the wrong thing and it times it by two, you say the right thing and although you feel better, it gets worse. The manager got sacked but my issues didn’t change. I don’t think having me there was all down to the manager. It came from somewhere else. My time at Norwich fizzled into a bad place really. Dean Smith came in and he wasn't the man to get the best out of me like in the way Daniel played. I felt like everything had been stripped. There was no respect for me. It was like I was a new signing who they signed on a free and if it didn’t work out then no problem. It wasn’t ‘this lad has come through the academy, dedicated his life to this club and won two Championship titles’, it was just ‘this is Todd, he’s different. We can treat him like that.’ You’re speechless because you’re still contracted to this football club. There are all sorts of legal things that can happen if you do that. My voice got removed. If I could go back, it wouldn’t have.

Todd Cantwell has spoken openly about his ill-fated ending at Carrow Road. (Image: Paul Chesterton/Focus Images Ltd)

Falling out of love with football after Norwich situation:

The family trauma that happened was enough for me to be in a bad place. Losing a family member isn’t good for anyone and it can be immensely difficult. There were other issues going on. You open up and tell people you wouldn’t ordinarily tell, like people at the club, you are vulnerable, right? For me, the bit that hurts more on reflection is how you can open up with that vulnerability and get that dagger in the back. It was ‘you’re not mentally there right now, go to the 23s’. Whilst I was in the 23s setup, and it was never for fitness, there were times at home where I thought ‘I am going to quit’. I was in tears. I had enough money. I’m good. This is draining me. I need to be here for my family. They are worrying about me. When your family genuinely support and care for you, they feel helpless and were silenced because we were advised to be. My family had nothing to look forward to to me. There was no way out. I’m glad I didn’t, but it felt like my only option because I was so unhappy.

Final season at Norwich:

At the end of that season, Norwich extended the one year extension they had on my contract. They knew it wouldn’t be agreed at that point after everything that had happened. That was the power they had to try and get a fee for me. Dean Smith called me into his office at the start of that season and said he wanted the best out of me. He said ‘if this team is going to play well, then it needs a player like you to play and play well.’ I felt like I was past it and that I needed to go. He was keen on keeping me at that point. As the Championship season started, the horror started again and very quickly it was like ‘this was the wrong decision’ but the window was shut. It looks like the Bournemouth move didn’t work out and you get labelled as a bad egg. Bournemouth didn’t say any of that because it wasn’t true. Then it got to David Wagner coming in and by the time he arrived, one of the first conversations with him was that I’m gone. There was no chance that I could buy into a new plan here. A new manager coming in wasn’t going to resolve my issues because they go above this. It was a ‘I wish you all the best’ type of conversation.

- Watch the full interview with Todd Cantwell on the Beautiful Game Podcast below