Norwich City chief David McNally is confident of beating the drop.

McNally knows the scale of the task but Norwich's recent success since promotion in 2011 can be portrayed as a victory against-the-odds.

"I am 100pc convinced that with everyone behind the manager we will stay in the league," he said. "We are too close for comfort to the bottom three and I know having invested this summer the supporters expect us to be higher, but we have a rock-solid belief that we will be playing Premier League football next season. We're 16th, not 20th and if you look at it we are three points from 10th place in the table.

"Last season we finished 11th when, as far as our payroll was concerned, we had the smallest budget in the division. Those are empirical facts. We punched massively above our weight. I don't know where we are going to appear in the payroll table again this season, but if we are not 20th we'll be 18th or 19th. That is not a complaint. It is the reality of economics in football. We are in a fight and it is a huge challenge."