WHAT to make of Norwich?
On the one hand they lie second bottom of the table, having lost six of their nine games so far. But on the other, they’ve beaten Manchester City, they have players returning from injury and last weekend kept their first clean sheet of the season in picking up a valuable point at Bournemouth. And on Sunday, they face Manchester United in a game that could be hugely important for both cubs’ seasons.
The worry for Norwich is that the xG table also has them in second bottom, albeit ahead of Newcastle United rather than Watford. But then again, nobody is really claiming that Norwich have been hard done by with the seven points they’ve collected this season, for all Daniel Farke’s complaints after the defeat at West Ham. The question is whether last weekend offered a way forward.
Colossal performance from this man! #ncfc pic.twitter.com/pH2wnrC2eu
— Norwich City FC (@NorwichCityFC) October 19, 2019
Norwich’s promotion was a minor miracle. They spent two years desperately selling off assets and then somehow were able to win the Championship last season on a net spend of only around £5m. In the summer they spent only £2.7m net Their last published accounts (for 2017-18) showed they lad a wage bill lower than that of Sunderland, who are currently struggling to get out of League One.
It will have gone up since, but not by a huge amount. Theirs is a story of what can be achieved by careful management and the identification of a significant but inexpensive managerial talent in Farke. But is that enough?
It’s common to suggest a side is too good to go down, to assume that they have enough good players that, eventually, they will go on a run of form that will get them out of trouble. But could the opposite be true if Norwich? Are they too weak to stay up? Is it inevitable that they will, at some point, suffer a run of poor form that will undermine them?
Perhaps it doesn’t even matter if they go down. Plenty of teams have found the cycle of staying up can become wearing, that it doesn’t matter how glamorous the opposition, how many great players come to Carrow Road, if defeats become an almost weekly occurrence. If fandom is primarily about memories, Norwich already have theirs for this season. For as long as football is played, they will remember their win over City, the 3-2 win, the desperate wait for the final whistle, the great unleashing of relief at the end.
Farke has a quick chat with Godfrey, before thanking the Norwich fans.
Even gives them a few oles.
I think that says a lot.
Do all you can to rebuild the positive feeling – no qualms about that.#AFCB #BOUNOR #NCFC
— Michael Bailey (@michaeljbailey) October 19, 2019
It’s fairly clear that the biggest problem is the defence: 21 goals conceded is the joint-worst record in the Premier League with Watford, whose record includes the eight they let in at Manchester City. The clean sheet at Bournemouth offers perhaps some hope in the regard, as Tim Krul returned in goal and Alex Tettey at the back of midfield to restore at least a degree of solidity. The problem is that Norwich also looked far less likely to score than they have at any point previously this season.
Much has been made of the fact that Teemu Pukki, having begun the season with six goals and two assists in five games hasn’t registered either a goal or an assist in his last four. In part that’s probably regression to the mean, but at least on Saturday it was partly due to Norwich’s switch of approach. That Norwich need to get him scoring again is obvious, but he did have one decent chance, and he had bagged two for Finland against Armenia in his previous game.
The other concern is that Norwich’s fixture list has been relatively kind so far. They have played only three of last season’s top nine, and only one of them away. That’s why this weekend’s game at home to Manchester United feels so vital. Old Gunnar Solskjaer’s side may have produced their best performance of the season since the opening day in drawing with Liverpool on Sunday, but they are a side set up to play without the ball. Norwich will be happy enough to operate as they did against City and try to hit United on the break, the difference being that United will not especially want possession.
That makes United vulnerable, particularly given the state of their confidence, even after the Liverpool game. If Norwich could win on Sunday, they would pull level on points with United and, more importantly, there would be a sense that there could perhaps be a path to salvation. United are another team seeing the sparks of optimism in a recent draw. One or other may see it snuffed out on Sunday.
