Opinion: Dean Smith needs to ensure this is a key part of Norwich City rebuild plans

Last time out, the Canaries stood by Daniel Farke and opted to trust the German to bring the team back up.

But this campaign, the 45-year old was sacked and replaced by Dean Smith in a bid to maintain their status as a top flight club.

Despite a tempered fight back midway through the season, Norwich were comfortably sent back down without much of a hassle.

That has once again left the club having to plan for life in the Championship and a path to promotion.

However, it is likely that it won’t be so easy at Carrow Road this time around.

While Smith has plenty of experience at this level with Brentford and Aston Villa, and has even earned promotion in the past, the squad itself is not in the best shape.

There are many older players reaching the end of their natural peak cycles.

The likes of Teemu Puuki (32), Grant Hanley (30), Pierre Lees-Melou (28) and Kenny McLean (30) have all been important players for the Canaries this season.

Those are not players that can be relied upon to be competitive for 46 gruelling league games and should be moved on to start a fresh rebuild at the club.

While there may be some short-term pain in opting to start a whole new cycle under Smith, it might be a longer-term strategy to earn the club’s status as a proper Premier League side as opposed to being a yo-yo club.

Norwich simply don’t have the resources to chuck money at the situation like Fulham have been able to in recent years, so will need to be smarter in the transfer market and may need to bide their time in the Championship for longer.

But there is an exciting core of young players still coming through.

Max Aarons, Milot Rashica, Josh Sargent, Kieran Dowell, Adam Idah and Andrew Omobamidele give the club a young group of players that