In focus/ Norwich City: Any Norwich fan sober enough to leave home yesterday will have done well to avoid the bookmakers. Long before the promotion celebrations at Carrow Road had died down, odds were being offered on the club going straight back to the First Division. A price of 4 to 7 at the bookies showed that few expect Nigel Worthington's team to survive.

If it seems unfair to start demoting Norwich before they have kicked a ball in the Premiership, no one at the club will be surprised. This season has confirmed that promoted sides tend to struggle, particularly without significant transfer money, and there is an air of realism as well as optimism about Norwich.

"It is a massive jump, there is no underestimating that," Worthington said. "We haven't got money to throw around at this football club.

"Charlton are a wonderful model club for us. They have gone up, gone down, gone up and now they are competing to try and get a place in the Champions League."

No one at Norwich is expecting a repeat of their famous European victory over Bayern Munich for a while, but the manager's comments do not mean he is taking relegation for granted. Far from it. He said he was "looking to add more quality" to the squad and he was upbeat.

"Team spirit can take you a long way and the one thing I am very strict on is discipline, so with that and a fair amount of talent, hopefully, that can take us a long way," he said.

"It is a David-and-Goliath situation but you know who won that fight, so we are up for it, looking forward to the challenge and are going to enjoy it."

Norwich will not spend beyond their means. Though a Premiership place brings a £20 million windfall from television rights and centralised sponsorships, the club are not going to risk their future less than a decade after being on the brink of administration.

"We have seen what other clubs have done and where they have gone wrong and we are very keen not to make those mistakes," said the chief executive Neil Doncaster.

Worthington respects that stance. "There'll be some money to spend on players, some to clear some of the debt and some money to spend on the stadium," he said, "and I'm happy with that."

Worthington spent impressively this season on players such as Darren Huckerby and Matthias Svensson, and used the loan system well. His summer purchases will be crucial, according to Colin Todd, who knows about the challenge of staying in the Premiership from his time in charge of Bolton.

"Nigel Worthington will know the team he's got will not be good enough to sustain them in the Premiership," said Todd, now assistant manager at Bradford. "The money available to him will not be great but he'll have to spend it wisely, I think on some experienced players with the know-how they'll need to survive."

Not that know-how is everything. "When you are buying players you have to make sure your homework is thorough in terms of character and desire," Todd said. "All right, they have the experience, but do they still want it? They have to have that desire because the Premiership is special."

Wolves and Leicester kept their spending low last summer after promotion and currently look likely to go straight down. Dave Bassett, Leicester's director of football who has taken Sheffield United and Wimbledon into the top flight, knows about the challenge facing Norwich.

"In the Premier League you are playing against infinitely better teams week in, week out," he said. "There are a good few games in the Nationwide that you think you can win if you're a decent side. In the Premier League every game is a hard game.

"Teams like Norwich, West Brom, Wolves and Leicester might have to accept they're yo-yo teams for a few years until they can get a squad that can stay in there for a while."

Squad is a key word because injuries and suspensions mean strength in depth is tested. "You need a squad of 18," Todd said. "It's not just 11. Sometimes I would look at my subs and think: 'How can I change this game?' That's not being disrespectful to my players, it's just the truth."