I feel there are a few common misconceptions about some Norwich players from the previous season. The very poor season has seen every player tarred with the same brush of being terrible — there are a few things though I feel that get said fairly regularly that aren’t particularly true.
Kieran Dowell is lazy
I am a self confessed Dowell fan-boy. At the end of last season I wrote how he was often overlooked when compared to Emi Buendia or Todd Cantwell. Unfortunately Dowell found it hard to get game time in the season just past, but when he was eventually played he impressed and ended up with the 2nd highest non-penalty xG + xA per 90 minutes (after Teemu Pukki). To me, it is fairly ridiculous that he only got 912 minutes across the whole season, especially when the team was crying out for someone with the ability to set up Pukki.
The biggest reasoning that Dowell wasn’t included more is that he is ‘lazy’ or he ‘doesn’t work hard enough off the ball’. This is one of those perceptions about Dowell that has stuck, but is just not true. As the graph below shows, no Norwich player (with over 500 minutes of football this season) made more pressures than Dowell per 90. While counting pressures isn’t the best way to define work rate, it does show that Dowell was not slacking in his off the ball work. He was usually the first player to press and pressed most consistently while on the pitch.
Max Aarons can’t defend
Aarons has probably played his last game for Norwich, although I thought that at the end of the last two seasons before this one as well. Throughout his time for Norwich the regular criticism that he can’t defend has be touted. This hasn’t come from nowhere of course and when he first burst into Farke’s team his attacking side was definitely his strength. However, there has been notable improvements in the defensive side of his game, most significantly is his ability at defending one-on-ones.
The scattergraph shows that Aarons had one of the highest success rates in tackling dribblers in the Premier League last season when compared to other fullbacks, although did face slightly less than average one-on-ones. Interestingly, the other full back at Norwich who is also often maligned for his defensive abilities had a high success rate when defending against one-on-ones as well. When compare to Norwich’s other starting full-back, Brandon Williams, it is possible to see that Max is far superior in the number of the duels his is winning (both attacking and defending) — this is despite the common narrative that Willams was the better defender. It is true that Max has a significant weakness when it comes to aerials duels, which has probably been the single largest factor in him failing to secure that big move sooner.
Aarons success rate in tackles in a significant improvement from his 19/20 Premier League season, where he lost more one-on-ones than he tackled, this is also counter to another persistent misconception; that Aarons has regressed over the past season.
Billy Gilmour was awful
This one I feel will be the most controversial view. I will start by saying that Gilmour was not great, he certainly didn’t show the performances that matched the hype or the player that many Chelsea and Scotland fans seem to believe he is. However, he wasn’t a complete disaster for Norwich and has become a bit of a scape goat for many.
What Billy Gilmour did do well for Norwich was progressing the ball up the pitch. One of Norwich’s biggest flaws was their inability to get the ball from their defensive areas up to the attack. Pukki was often left isolated and starved of any service, this was usually even more pronounced when Gilmour was not on the pitch. Gilmour progressed the ball further per 90, through a combination of passes and carries than any other Norwich player.
It also wasn’t a case that Gilmour was progressing the ball in less attacking areas; no Norwich player moved the ball into the attacking third of the pitch more than him, which was achieved through both a good number of carries and passes. As well as being Norwich’s best player when progressing the ball in open play, Gilmour’s set pieces were one of Norwich’s rare forms of attack. He provided good deliveries from both the left and right hand side which averaged at least one shot every 90 mins. While this doesn’t sound an impressive figure, Gilmour produced an above average amount of shots from set plays in the Premier League — although Norwich failed to make the most of the opportunities (largely due to Hanley’s 20p shaped head).
This isn’t to say Gilmour had a good season, only Pukki can probably claim that from the Norwich squad, but he has shown some of the talent he was purported to have. Unfortunately, in Norwich’s horribly unbalanced midfield he was not given a platform to really excel. Over the season we saw the things I highlighted about Gilmour’s game upon his signing. He demonstrated his ability to find space and improved on progressing the ball upfield, he was a willing runner in midfield (clocking up Norwich’s 3rd highest number of pressures per 90) but his weaknesses, mainly his literal physical weakness, was also highlighted. Overall I’d say Gilmour was no worse than either Lees-Melou or Normann and probably had a better season than McLean in Norwich’s midfield, but last season it was a cursed position where no Norwich player was destined to succeed.
