After an opening month of promise upon Norwich City’s return to the Premier League, Alex Neil’s men have since failed to capitalise on their strengths and have slipped back into an old-style Chris Hughton rut. What’s more worrying, though, is that the same old problems remain from the previous regime’s relegation campaign.
After just one win since the end of September, Norwich looked to be rewriting the rule book after defeats against Leicester and West Brom, who made taking three points from Carrow Road look like child’s play, sandwiching a St. James Park freak show. Clearly, Neil had had enough of the Chuckle brothers-style defending that had plagued his side since the latter part of their promotion success and shook it up for the trip to the Etihad, where the Yellows had previously been annihilated 7-0. Even with five defenders and a midfield pairing of Tettey and Mulumbu, Norwich looked capable of keeping an ailing Man City team at bay, and even looked surprisingly threatening on the counter. Had it not been for Ryan Bennett falling asleep at a corner and Ruddy’s trademark blunder, it would have been a remarkable three point haul for the newly-promoted Canaries. Instead, it only led to another post match onslaught from the manager, regaling how school boy errors had cost his team dear on yet another occasion.
Credit where it’s due, though, the 34-year old used the defeat as a springboard for recent successes against Swansea and a somewhat frustrating point at home to a lacklustre Arsenal team symbolised one hell of a turnaround for the whole City squad. As seems to be the true Norwich way these days, the management seemed to throw the rule book in the bin again for the away game at Watford. City played a ‘hoof-ball’ game, which hadn’t served them well in the past anyway (remember early on against Wigan, Brentford and Middlesbrough at home? No? Don’t blame you), made worse by the decision to play Lewis Grabban as the assumed recipient of long balls from the Yellows’ back line. A most alarming strategic pitfall, considering Grabban’s habitual non-committal towards out-muscling defenders and attempting to make something from nothing, unlike City’s main striker, Dieumerci Mbokani.
Even more concerning though, is Neil’s willingness to abandon the tactics that were so instrumental to the team’s success in the Championship, epitomised by the second goal at Wembley, and Norwich’s early success this season. If Neil was hard done by with nine points by the end of September then the team had to be doing something right. Right? Well, by the time that Leicester and West Brom walked away from Carrow Road with three easy points, despite City’s domination of possession, it forced the management to strike a balance between solid defending and defence-splitting attacking play. Since the beginning of this search for balance, the team have been unlucky at Man City, hesitant at Chelsea, superb against Arsenal and Hughton-esque facing Swansea and Watford. So when you look at it like that, Norwich haven’t really changed much since the last round of flirting with Premier League relegation.
Perhaps the only significant difference is who gets the blame after each passing defeat, six in the last eight league games in case you hadn’t realised. Whereas before, our ‘defensive’ manager was the one getting slated in the post match phone-ins, it’s now the turn of the likes of Russell Martin, John Ruddy, Steven Whittaker and Lewis Grabban, and perhaps rightly so, since Alex Neil is arguably Norwich’s most tactically flexible manager since Mike Walker’s Bayern masterclass. So is Norwich a more secure as a football team? As a group of 11 players on the pitch? Probably not. In terms of who’s in charge at the side of the pitch? Popular opinion would suggest so, therefore, with the torrid form of late this season is a write-off, should it continue. But this is football, and if it’s unpredictability you’re looking for, then the Premier League is the place to be and looking at City’s run-in during March and April (Swansea, Man City, West Brom, Newcastle, Crystal Palace, Sunderland, Watford and Arsenal) you could argue your case for Norwich’s prospects of ‘doing a Leicester’.
Top of the table next Christmas sounds alright, doesn’t it?
