Jack Stacey on captain McLean's influence at Norwich City

Philippe Clement’s tough love showed itself at the weekend when, after successive defeats, City came good with a 4-1 demolition of relegated Burnley.

The coming months will prove whether the pre-season demands have worked – but in-form defender Jack Stacey says it won’t be for a lack of effort, not least on the part of their influential skipper.

“Kenny always sets the standards for everybody,” said Stacey. “First of all, by what he does himself. He never misses a training session or misses a game and his communication within the group is so important.

“I do think though that we have a really good group where we’re almost setting the standards for each other and if anyone’s off you get told.”

At 30, Stacey is the second most senior member of the City squad, four years younger than McLean, with a dozen years playing experience on his CV. But this summer, he admits, has probably been the toughest.

“We had a very detailed off-season programme, probably the most detailed I’ve seen, so it made sure that everyone had to come back in a really good place going into the 2026-27 campaign,” he said in a matchday programme interview.

“It very steadily ramped up and was probably one of the hardest pre-seasons I have ever personally had, with both morning and afternoon sessions.

“At this stage in the season it’s quite hard to see where you’re going to end up, but I think everybody’s going to be in a really good place.”

Clement opted for continuity rather than wholescale squad changes in the summer – which got the thumbs up from Stacey.

“Since I’ve been here, we’ve had some summers where there has been a really massive turnover in players and really new ones coming in, whereas this one, it’s just been about adding to what we already had, so maybe it’s a little bit easier in that sense,” he said.

“Bruno (Alves) is very good, really good in training. He’s still learning English a bit so it’s going to be a challenge for him, but you can see that it’s not affecting him on the pitch, which is great.

“Sam (Field) we obviously knew already and Andre (Brooks) has just started to settle in, so it hasn’t felt like a massive change.

“It feels natural when you get past the first few weeks; you kind of forget that they were new in the first place.”