It is fair to say that Norwich’s 22/23 season petered out towards a miserable end. After defeating Milwall 3–2 in South East London in a untypical resilient performance by Norwich there was talk by fans (and some pundits) of securing a play-off position and even hunting down Sheffield United. The club had just won four games out of the previous five and things were looking up under David Wagner who had six wins out of nine games in total. However, that game at the Den marked the end of a good run of form and the beginning of an awful one. One win in Wagner’s next 11 games meant Norwich ended the season in their lowest position since 2018 after having sat in the automatic promotion positions in October.
The rolling average of xG and xGa above shows the fluctuations of the season. Under Dean Smith, Norwich were attacking well, but giving up far to many chances, as soon as the attack started to falter results turned and fans’ patience for his style of football collapsed. Wagner arrived, immediately saw the attack and defence improving. While he managed to continue to keep the defence more solid he unfortunately, couldn’t maintain the improvements in the attack. Injuries to key players at the end of the season saw the defence collapse and results follow.
There are multiple reasons why the season fell apart. Webber pointed to the injuries and players becoming demotivated when promotion seemed unlikely. Wagner talked about the dressing room mentality and fitness levels.
On top of the above off field reasons, on the pitch Norwich were poor. Wagner’s desire for position play in possession meant that Norwich often ended up in a 3–1–6 formation with players spaced too far from each other and possession turned over in dangerous areas. Sloppy errors also became endemic with Norwich gifting opponents 23 shots from them, five more than the next closest team Hull.
By the end of the season changes were needed. Overhauls, rebuilds and other such verbs were thrown around by David Wagner and Stuart Webber in interviews. Six players who had all contributed to the first team would leave and multiple new signings would arrive, Webber later touting 5–7 new first team players coming in.
New Signings
With the season set to kick off soon, have signed five new players for the first team directly and Kellen Fisher, originally destined for the youth team has become a sixth first team player. An early theme of the transfers was those available on free transfers from English clubs with plenty of experience — Ashley Barnes, Jack Stacey and Shane Duffy all arrived with a combined total of 1,076 appearances between them. Barnes and Duffy were also touted by the club for their ‘intangibles’, their mentality, leadership and experience seemingly as important as their footballing abilities. That is to say the latter should not be overlooked, Barnes in particular had just come off a very successful season at Burnley were he appeared in 39 times in the Championship.
Duffy is coming off a less successful recent period where he has struggled at Celtic and Fulham and is looking to regain some of the form that saw him as such a vital part of Brighton’s defence. He nicely fills a short term need to fill the hole in Norwich’s defence created by Hanley’s injury and at 6'3" he provides a much needed arial presence.
Jack Stacey is different to Barnes and Duffy as he is a player now in his peak who can slot straight in at right back to replace Max Aarons who it was likely expected to have left Norwich before the season kicked off. Stacey is a simple ‘plug in and play’ signing who can come into the team and perform immediately without the need for adjustment and has shown in pre-season that his athleticism will suit Wagner’s style well and while he is probably a downgrade in overall ability compared to Max, who continues to be one of the best right backs in the Championship and has probably only lost out on a bigger move due to many teams now looking for more physical full backs who can slot into central defensive positions.
I have written about both Borja Sainz and Christian Fassnacht in more detail and recommend reading both those pieces to understand more about them as players. Both seem smart pieces of business, especially getting Sainz without a fee due to a relegation clause. They will provide Wagner with wide attackers who more fill his requirements in being hard runners and more physical. Both are more goalscorers than creators and will need to adapt. The injury to Sainz is particularly disappointing given his potential.
The Tactics
It has been clear across pre-season that Norwich are looking to be far more defensively solid in the season. A 4–4–2 mid block has been a running theme in all the games that matter (those after Kings Lynn).
Norwich will fall into this shape once the opposition have settled possession. It allows them to remain structured, but also having the two in the front line to restrict the opposition’s ability to play centrally, as well as jumping on any loose balls played back towards the keeper. I expect the use of this shape is a result of so many Championship teams using a back three, with only one striker pressing it is easy for the defenders to bypass the initial line of defence, the 4–4–2 shape will make it harder to do that. Given a defence of Duffy and Gibson won’t be winning too many races deploying a mid/low block makes more sense. In the friendlies, Norwich held the shape well and restricted everyone they played to limited opportunities — conceding only a single goal across the last five games.
However, this defensive stability has potentially come at the cost of the attack and in possession Norwich have failed to look particularly dangerous. While the shape of the team has changed at times from the flawed 3–1–6 to a 3–3–4, with both wingers dropping into the midfield to offer more options, building up attacks has been difficult, especially against teams who adopted a low block such as Kaiserslautern. The lack of Norwich’s most creative player in Gabriel Sara for nearly all pre-season has probably exacerbated this issue and really highlighted his importance for the team. Against Olympiacos there was more fluidity to Norwich in the first 45 mins and good rotations building in the middle of the pitch.
The NCFC Anaylsis twitter account has covered all this in much greater detail with a more honed eye so I won’t repeat it all here but recommend you check out his pieces on this.
Things to look out for during the season that have cropped up in pre-season are defenders and goalkeeper placing their studs on the ball and standing still when playing out from the back. While this can look like a player without an idea of what to do, it is usually done to invite the opposition to press. The idea being to draw an opponent towards you, so you can play into the space they leave behind and avoid the first line of the press.
It also seems like cross-field passes from the centre backs to advancing fullbacks will be a feature in attacks. I feel this might be particularly common to Stacey with Ben Gibson and Kenny McLean being the more talented passes in the back line, it suits going from left to right. Norwich won’t be afraid of going direct to Barnes and Sargent and Norwich will likely go from a team who use crosses very rarely, to one that does it more regularly.
Overall
The current pre-season has been possibly see fans and pundits the most pessimistic since the 2018. Expectations have sunk from promotion to mid-table (and worse for some). I can see that after what has been two bruising seasons for Norwich and a sorry end to last season why there is this mood. However, when I look at Norwich’s team I see they still have one of the best keepers in the league with Gunn, midfielder in Sara and striker with Sargent. I wouldn’t say there is anyone position that I feel Norwich are severely underpowered but it is about getting it to all work together. Across the team the I would say the ‘floor’ of ability is quite high, but apart from Gunn, Sara and Sargent, the ‘ceiling’ is quite low.
There are question marks over a Duffy/Gibson defensive partnership, with neither in sparkling form recently, both prone to gaffes and lack of pace. They are however both experienced players who have both shown seasons of excellence in the Championship. Gibson looks far more comfortable next to Duffy than he has done with Hanley or Omobamidele and has quietly been one of the best performers in pre-season.
The midfield balance has also been a talking point with no new players arriving in that area. I was personally very keen for a defensive midfielder to arrive this summer and Sara to move to a more attacking role. However, I can see why Wagner wants to use Sara like he used Mooy at Huddersfield, a deeper playmaker who has the technical ability to help beat presses and receive the ball from the centre backs. There does feel an element though of trying to shoehorn in both McLean and Sara, who are relatively similar players that want to be closer to the opposition box than their own, into the system rather than having one more defensively minded midfielder. This isn’t say a Skipp or Tettey type midfielder is needed, but currently running to players who have spent most of their careers in more attacking roles can lead to Norwich being exposed at the back. I can also see the flip side that their on the ball ability is just as important to Norwich’s play and it is unlikely Norwich will be able to go out an find a complete midfielder on a relatively short budget.
There are concerns about creativity also, and this is probably the biggest unknown. In pre-season much of Norwich’s goalscoring has come from set pieces and in no game have they consistently troubled the opposition goal keeper. They have looked more comfortable in possession in the final third when Nunez has played as the 10 rather than the two strikers but Wagner seems keen to develop a partnership between Barnes and Sargent. Wagner will want high-pressing and counter pressing to create Norwich’s chances this season rather than a mercurial playmaker, it is a significant change from Farke’s system of playing three player makers behind Pukki and will take fans so convincing that it can work out.
I said before the beginning of last season that Norwich needed to focus on defence, pressing and set pieces and it seems they have done with Wagner. The problem is now whether they have done so at the cost of their attack.
I don’t do predictions, especially in the Championship and this season it feels like Norwich could be anything from lower mid-table to strong playoff contenters. When Norwich has Emi and Pukki at the heights of their powers it didn’t feel like they needed anyone else to perform to give them a chance. This season will be much more about the collective working together to make the team greater than the sum of its parts.
