Pre-season is done and competitive fixtures are a mere few days away. I think it is safe to say that most people will feel that the pre-season has potentially posed more questions than it has given answers about how Norwich’s return to the Championship is going to go.
The Squad
Goal Keepers
In Krul and Gunn Norwich have two keepers who have plenty of experience at Championship level and will be pushing each other strongly for the starting spot. In 2020/21 Krul was exceptional in goal and saved 9 goals over the expected rate. In 21/22 this switched to him conceding 6 more goals than expected compared to 19/20 where he saved 2 over expected. For the first time since initially arriving Krul has started to look a little shakey in goal and his place as first choice keeper is under question. Gunn will be pushing hard and conceded slight under expected in his 9 games last season. The fight for starting keeper will be one to keep a close eye on, especially as Krul is desperate to make it to the World Cup in the winter and will need to keep playing to do so.
Defence
The big change in defence will be Omobamidele not only becoming a regular starter, but looking the best defender currently at the club. Despite only making a few starts for Norwich across two seasons due to the form of others or his own injuries, he has be able to show that he is a very capable defender and supremely calm and composed on the ball.
What will be interesting to see is who partners him in defence. When playing alongside Hanley there is the natural issue caused with having two right footed centrebacks, neither of which are overly comfortable with playing the ball out from the back and can struggle against high pressing teams. Even in pre-season it was possible to see that opposing teams would use Hanley receiving the ball as a pressing trigger, knowing that he wants to move the ball onto his right foot which closes off his passing options.
Gibson however, is not only left footed, but is the most comfortable at playing forward passes through the lines, in the 20/21 season he was often the instigator in Norwich’s attacks and even picked up a glorious assist to Buendia against Bristol City. In many ways it makes more sense to start him alongside Omobamidele over the club captain. Neither Gibson or Hanley will be happy to not be regular starters and at the moment Hanley is in pole position. Partly due to Gibson’s injury and partly due to Smith perhaps not favouring him after some high profile errors towards the end of the season. Whether Gibson is happy to stay on the sidelines will be seen, but it would be a shame to lose a defender who has such on-the-ball ability and showed in Norwich’s previous Championship campaign that he is a very solid defender at this level.
Midfield
To date, Norwich have signed Gabriel Sara and Isaac Hayden (with another to come). I’ve covered both in earlier pieces and they are both players brought in to Norwich’s most cursed area of the pitch from last season, the midfield. Unfortunately, neither has been available for any of the pre-season due to injuries so it is yet to be seen how Smith intends to use them. There is a fairly stark contrast in the types of signings they are; Hayden an experienced operator who should have no issues stepping into the Championship and Gabriel a complete unknown who will have to overcome a steep adaption curve once he gets going.
Of the players to leave Norwich so far Lees-Melou is the only one who played significant minutes last season. He was okay at best in his one season at Norwich and often looked uncomfortable with the intensity of the Premier League, while he could have provided good depth to Norwich’s midfield it didn’t feel like Smith had him earmarked as a regular starter, especially with the arrival of Gabriel Sara.
It could though be players returning to the club from loans that provide some of the biggest impact to Norwich’s season. In particular Todd Cantwell has been the stand-out performer of the pre-season and his raw ability is well known to Norwich fans. In addition Danel Sinani provides a solid Championship performer who Dean Smith seems keen to get involved.
The injuries will likely give both players the chance the start the season in the team and they will be tasked with creating the bulk of chances for Pukki. Both are highly creative players and should be able to provide the ammo for the Finnish striker, personally I feel much of the talk of a lack of creativity this pre-season is being overplayed and a midfield of Cantwell/Sinani and Sara, backed up by Hayden should be more than sufficient.
Attack
Norwich’s attack will be headed up by Teemu Pukki, and good luck to any of Norwich’s other strikers in trying to get ahead of him. Supporting him will likely be Raschia on the left and Josh Sargent on the right, although they will be providing very different roles. Raschia often starts in wide positions on the left, but will look to come infield as the attack builds, in the Celtic game he roamed much more than last season and made 2 of his three shots from the right hand side of the box. I’d expect more of this across the season as Smith looks for his attackers to rotate their positions more often.
It feels like this has to be the season for Josh Sargent, when he signed from Bremen I said in my piece that it may have been wiser to stay in 2. Bundesliga and really discover his scoring touch, as well as showing he is a hard worker and good physical presence. Now hopefully he has that chance with Norwich in the Championship. I can see him playing a role where he tries to stay close to Pukki to provide some knock downs as well as looking to use his height against full-backs who tend to be smaller. Smith made very effective use of El Ghazi at Villa as a wide target man, Sargent could be that player for him this season. Josh could also be a crucial player if Norwich want to consistently press high up the pitch as his work rate has never been in question, and his introduction at half time against Southampton swung the game in Norwich’s favour.
Norwich have a lot of players in the attacking positions, but question marks lay over all of them apart from Pukki. Hernandez and Hugill seem to be praised for their cheerleading abilities more than their footballing ones. With Hernandez it is always clear what you will get from the player who attempted more dribbles than anyone else in the Championship last season (per 90), Hugill’s loan at Cardiff was not massively successful, but he did have one of the highest xG per 90 rates in the Championship, a little more composure in front of goal could have seen him at least double his goal tally.
While, Rowe and Springett are prospects, they could easily fall the way of Josh Martin as a player given minutes in an ailing Premier League campaign due to a desperation, but then fail to really kick on. There has been little sign in pre-season that they will make significant contributions, and loans for both might be the best thing for their development.
Tactics
One of the biggest criticism of Smith is his lack of a playing style, ‘what does a Dean Smith team look like?’ I made this same comment in my post-season review. But, having watched most of the pre-season where possible, I actually think we are starting to see the faintest of Smith’s fingerprints on the team. The Celtic game in particular showed a Norwich who were going to press high most of the time and did a good job at pushing Celtic back into their final third. It was maybe the perfect opposition for Norwich as the Scottish Champions are a very good team at playing through a press (and very good in general), and did manage to do so on several occasions, but Norwich also managed to create their own chances from winning the ball high and even in the Celtic box. In the end Celtic managed 9 shots, and Norwich managed 8 — although during the game it probably felt more weighted towards Celtic at the time.
I touched on the perceived lack of creativity and do agree, to an extent, but it seems many consider creativity to be only something that comes from a mercurial №10. Given that Norwich have had a pretty long track record of having such a player, between Buendia, Maddison, Pritchard and Hoolahan, that is understandable. Firstly to this point I’d say that Norwich’s closest player to this type is Kieran Dowell (who I feel I am often having to remind people is a thing, and a very good thing), unfortunately Dowell has been injured for most of pre-season, so where he fits in is unclear, but he could slot into central midfield alongside Sara and Hayden to provide the creativity. Secondly, pressing can be creative. Win the ball high while the oppositions back line is out of shape and creating chances becomes far easier.
In my season review I touched on what I felt Norwich needed to change going into the new season. It basically boiled down to three main areas that needed improving; defence, set-pieces and pressing. Out of these three I’ve seen definite improvements in pressing and a set-piece coach has come in, so not a bad start. Whether the defence has improved will be an unknown until a few weeks of the season has passed, but a fit Omobamidele and improved pressing will hopefully mean an improved defence, especially if Hayden can get fit and playing.
Overall
I’m fairly positive about the upcoming season, although it is impossible to not hold some doubts after last season. I suspect that many held these same doubts prior to the beginning of the last Championship season after seeing Norwich finished their Premier League campaign with 10 straight defeats and 1 goal being scored. Regardless of how bad Norwich were last season, they were never as bad as the post-Project Restart Norwich.
Some are concerned by the lack of incomings, and cite that last time in the Championship there was something of a reset. However, the opening day of the season saw only three players start who weren’t in the team the previous season, so it was more the fringe players that were rotated out. There can be far too much focus on bringing in new signings and the desire for transfers and shiny new toys. What I would prefer to see is a focus on getting the players that are already at the team playing better.
There is no doubt that a confident, fully flying Milot Rashica is better than pretty much anyone Norwich could sign this season, the same can a be said for players such as Pukki, Cantwell, Omobamidele, Aarons etc. While some small tweaks were needed in midfield, Hayden and Sara have seemingly done this and now it is just a matter of getting them playing.
