Norwich City: Narcis Pelach prospective Stoke move analysed

Arriving at Norwich City, one of Johannes Hoff Thorup's first public messages was his happiness to work with the backroom team already assembled on David Wagner's watch. Alongside him he had new assistant Glen Riddersholm, but supporting the Danish duo were first-team coach Narcis Pelach, set-piece specialist Andrew Hughes and goalkeeping coach Paul Clements.

Now, within four months of Thorup's appointment, the likely departures of Pelach and Clements to Stoke City signal the rapid end of that fleeting coaching era.

The negatives of those moves for Norwich are clear, with a summer of transition on the pitch compounded by moves off it. If the job of overseeing a totally new project wasn't made hard enough by losing Gabriel Sara, Jonathan Rowe and Adam Idah, three new faces off it will do the trick.

Perhaps those are just the quirks of a transitional period, but in any case Thorup and his players have had to continually adjust since the start of pre-season.

That's why campaigns like this one must not be underestimated in their difficulty. In many ways the long-term goal highlights why the short-term situation is such a challenge: the aim is strength and stability over a number of years, but it's been all change in just a few months.

Johannes Hoff Thorup (centre) has had to deal with plenty of change as Norwich head coach (Image: Paul Chesterton/Focus Images Ltd) But that's not the only reason why Pelach's prospective appointment as Stoke boss is bad news in Norfolk. Sporting director Ben Knapper will have secured compensation, but he'll have lost a coach who's highly regarded across the game. The excitement around his 2023 arrival revealed as much.

The CV and standing he brought to Colney in May that year was encouraging, but it was the subsequent interview with the Pink Un, conducted in the Carrow Road media lounge four months later, that had fans animated by his capture.

For nearly 45 minutes he spoke intelligently and knowledgably about his footballing views, his short-lived playing days and his aspirations for the future. He referenced a desire to be a Premier League assistant coach, which hasn't come to fruition, and a plan to become a head coach again, which looks like it will be. Maybe they were only words, but outside the internal bubble that's all there really is from a backroom team member.

Within the walls he lived up to the billing, however, and impressed many of those he came across. He was well liked by players, appreciated by bosses and helpful to peers. Add to that his chameleonic adaptation to different styles and it's easy to see why he was kept around when Wagner departed.

At various times he worked on analysis, exploiting opposition, defensive improvement and attacking work. Within 16 months of being appointed he was a key cog in the yellow and green system.

Pelach became a key figure at Colney (Image: PA) But, as is the case with players like Sara, Rowe and Idah, all good things come to an end, and often positives go with that.

There's the fact, for example, that a coach more in the Thorup mould can be appointed, someone more specifically wedded to his and Knapper's principles. As great an ally as Riddersholm is, the more proponents of the new style in the building the better.

That process has already begun with Nick Stanley, the man straddling set-pieces and first-team coaching after Hughes' summer move to Leicester. City hope to move with similar speed in their bid to replace Pelach, and if completed with similar accuracy they'll move towards the unified backroom setup they desire.

It won't be easy though. Combine this latest development with the weekend's 1-0 loss at Swansea, and the downsides of change are becoming clearer to supporters. Like at the start of Daniel Farke's tenure in 2017, the regular pattern of adaptation and departure will continue until the transition phase is complete.

But that isn't necessarily a bad thing, and change, after all, is what many of those fans wanted. Losing Pelach is undoubtedly a blow, but it continues the process towards Thorup's end product.