The Redemption Of Super Mario

One of the most remarkable things about the 2018/19 Norwich City team has been its seemingly constant ability to cope with injuries, dust itself off and regenerate itself. Like a bit of ivy on your garage, every time a bit dies, something else steps into the void and flourishes. Tom Trybull, Christoph Zimmerman, and Emi Buendia have been amongst those making up the numbers at various points this season, but have taken their chances with such aplomb that it’s difficult to see anyone as a squad player at the moment.

But perhaps the most remarkable comeback kid of them all is Mario Vrancic, not only because his own rejuvenation has taken him right to the pinnacle of Championship football, January’s Player of the Month no less, but also because his ascent started from such an ordinary base camp.

Vrancic is now irrefutably detached from the player once written off as one of Farke’s misfits. His trajectory has mirrored that of his gaffer, turning an unconvincing first season into a stellar second. If the game against Ipswich didn’t demonstrate his importance, then his absence against Preston surely did, as the rather more prosaic midfield of Tettey and Trybull banged their heads against North End’s brick wall.

Even though injury forced him to depart prematurely last Sunday, before Paul Lambert even, Vrancic’s unique ability to combine the sublime and the rugged had already put his side well on the way to a famous win.

As Jon Punt pointed out in this column in the game’s immediate aftermath, Vrancic could probably even lay claim to the game’s vital contribution, one of a number of times when that has been the case this season. With Ipswich setting up to be “difficult to beat,” or shithousing if you prefer, our early goal knocked out of them what little stuffing they had. Vrancic embodied our effervescent clamour to get the job done, getting straight down to business in the box and throwing himself at the first loose ball that came his way. Vrancic knowingly took a blow from Luke Chambers in the process, which couldn’t have been more apt. For all his tough guy talk in the summer holidays, Chambers ended up with his head in the toilet on the first day of term.

Farke should probably shoulder some of the blame for Vrancic’s slow start last season, often ostracising him in curious wide positions and appearing uncertain himself of his ability to take the reins in the fulcrum of midfield. While his thinking might have been driven by an obvious need to prioritise accommodating James Maddison, it did Vrancic few favours.

Hindsight will no doubt alter the true facts, Vrancic’s early performances actually really were pretty bad, his contributions being fitful, hesitant and clumsy in equal measure. His few performances of note tended to come in the second-string games. He scored his first two goals in a Carabao Cup win at Brentford, although let’s not forget that Brentford really weren’t great. They booted a penalty into the upper tier and even Marley Watkins gave them some trouble that night. Vrancic then missed a sitter at Arsenal in the next round anyway, as if he was keen to get himself back into the shadows again.

But his performances seemed to settle around the turn of the year. He relished marshalling the embryonic talents of Lewis, Maddison and Cantwell in the FA Cup game at Chelsea and gave us the first suggestions that there was actually a player in there.

But the Mark II Vrancic this year has been a new beast, and an actual beast at that. Not only has he scored seven times in 26 games, but his performances, particularly in the recent absence of Moritz Leitner have gone up so many notches that he was officially the best player in the Championship last month. His goals have been worth an additional six points to us and he’s our only player to successfully take a penalty this season.

He’s long been able to clip a nice seven iron around the field, but he’s added a willingness to receive the ball in near-suicidal situations and play his way out, perhaps our key weapon against the high press that is so in vogue these days. Five bookings suggests that he’s been willing to put a foot in as well, and he’s put up with some nasty treatment from the ruffians without much fuss.

The curious thing about the Farke/Webber transfer era, is that it is not only improving chronologically, but retrospectively also. The quality of their signings is improving with each available window but players that they signed at the very beginning who we thought were rubbish are turning out to be pretty good too. Perhaps James Husband and Marcel Franke are unlikely to ever come back and turn their fortunes around, but they must be getting increasingly lonely in the knackers yard now that Vrancic and Marco Stiepermann have had enough of it in there.

Should Vrancic finish the season in the pantheon of our promotion-winners it will complete a remarkable turnaround, not least because this sort of thing doesn’t really happen very often. It’s not peculiar to Norwich City that once the die is cast on a signing it’s difficult to re-set. Recent years have given us few examples. One of the few true exceptions is Iwan Roberts. Now that he’s been anointed to virtual NCFC sainthood, it’s strange to think that the big man scored only seven times in his first season with us, three of those not coming until the last few games. But he knuckled down, stopped drinking coke, shed a few stone, and scored another 89 goals over the next six seasons.

Now that Vrancic is himself the injury absentee, Moritz Leitner will hopefully pick up the midfield baton again. There’s been a few remarkable stories this season, but Vrancic is as entitled as anyone to give his horn a blow at the moment.