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The Premier League is establishing itself as one of the most stable sporting tournaments around the globe, in both financial and entertainment terms. The sort of fan base it has inculcated over the past decade is second to none. While other leagues in major footballing nations suffer with financial crises’, English football has reinforced its pillars with lucrative money deals.
As a result clubs like Norwich, who fought the relegation battle last season have been able to spend more than 25 million pounds on new players this summer. Manager Chris Hughton is now all set to power the Canaries into the top 10 this season. We will see why and how will he do it.
Though Chris Hughton managed to place the team in 11th spot at the end of May, they were only 8 points from Wigan who got relegated to the championship. Such crowded was the bottom half of the table in the 2012-13 season. Escaping from the clutches of elimination into the lower leagues, Hughton has never looked back.
The money coming in from the already established TV pool and the new TV rights deal kicking off this season, all the Premier League clubs have been blessed with good cash. While European ambition is quite a long shot for Hughton, they have every right to push for silverware in the domestic front and are capable of pulling off a Swansea (Capital One Cup). Lets now take a structural approach in breaking down Norwich’s tactics and later look how the new signings fit into it.
Traditional Wingplay and Set Pieces
Norwich usually play a slightly tweaked version of the 4-4-2 formation, which has sort of been the conventional setup for the clubs in Premier League since its institution. The use of classic wingers and a burly center-forward with another striker playing off the shoulder of the defenders is the most common trait of this system.
Chris Hughton fielded a 4-4-1-1 formation with the likes of Wesley Hoolahan or Steve Morison playing in the hole behind the striker, Grant Holt. Wingers in Robert Snodgrass and Anthony Pilkington were largely instrumental in most of the Norwich wins with their direct wingplay and extremely dangerous crossing. Also, the overlapping runs of the fullbacks Russell Martin and Javier Garrido helped overload the flanks and create crossing opportunities.
Norwich’s major strength is their set piece play. Almost half of their goals last season came from dead ball situations, and more than 40% of their goals from open play were assisted by crosses from the wings. So, that statistic justifies how prominent Norwich’s wingplay has been.
Their major weakness though, was the toothless midfield and a lackluster defense. Bradley Johnson has been the only midfielder who was anything close to the best player the Canaries had for the central midfield. His tackling and interception rate has managed to sparsely compensate the poor midfield pairings.
Alex Tettey and Johnathan Howson just couldn’t cope with the quality of other midfields in the league. As a result of a poor mid, the defense was time and again exposed which left Bassong and Turner to deal with direct runners. Also, the high positioning of the fullbacks contributed to the defensive downfall.
New Signings
Norwich very badly needed the goals last season, as Grant Holt was not at his best and other strikers didn’t manage to find their purple patch either. The number of draws they racked up is a testament to this, 14.
Grant Holt, Steve Morison and Simeon Jackson left the club, leaving the striking department almost empty with Becchio the only one left. Chris Hughton sought this as the major problem and set out to solve it even before the 12-13 season ended.
Sporting Lisbon forward, Ricky van Wolfswinkel was signed for 10 million euros. The Dutch striker produced 45 goals in 88 appearances for the Portuguese side and is also known in some circles as ‘Hatricky’, thanks to his knack of scoring thrice on many occasions during the early days of his career.
At 24, Ricky is still very young and a national team call may not be far, if he starts to ply his trade in England, right in time for the World Cup.
Maybe Hughton has a thing for teams with white and green jerseys. But he went on to sign another prolific goalscorer in Celtic’s Gary Hooper. Hooper, who is a youth product of Spurs, traveled a lot before settling at Celtic and the Scottish PL. He has been a pivotal figure in Celtic’s commanding league wins in the past two seasons.
Decorated by almost every possible trophy in Scotland, Hooper longed a new challenge and agreed to move to Norwich for a fee of 6.3 million euros. The next area to reinforce was the midfield, and in came Leroy Fer. A transfer target for Everton last season, as a possible replacement for Fellaini, Dutch international, Fer has been on the radar of many clubs across Europe and it was a surprise that he chose to join Norwich over other clubs which were much better, statistically.
With money still left in the kitty, Hughton was chasing England U19 international, Nathan Redmond who was impressive for Birmingham. Touted as a future England star, Redmond chose to join Norwich over Swansea after both clubs made a 2.3 million euro bid for the player.
While this can be considered as a long term signing, it portrays the right direction in which Noriwch are headed. Also, Javier Garrido, who was on loan from Lazio last term, made his transfer permanent for a fee of 1.5 million euros. The fullback will face some competition from another new signing Martin Olsson. The mercurial and agile fullback ended his days at Blackburn and returned to the Premier League, where he had a decent past.
New goals
With an above average squad and a decent manager, Norwich City will now aim at finishing in the top 10 in the League and having a strong run in the cup competitions. Their pre-season has not been that great, but Hooper and Wolfswinkel have shown some promise with a couple of goals between them.
While one can only speculate on the tactics managers use with a completely new set of players, changing the already established system might not serve well for the ambitions of the owners. So, a solidified midfield with one or both of the new strikers playing upfront would be an ideal scenario.
A change of formation to 4-2-3-1 would not markedly affect the balance of the team but will aid in possessing more dynamism going forward. With a player like Fer, anchoring the middle, one can afford to play a 4-2-3-1. There is also a possibility of fielding two strikers, to unsettle strong defenders. In which case, a 4-3-1-2 is a natural fit. Natural in the sense of fitting the versatile Hoolahan into the setup. But it would completely sway away from the established theory of wingplay.
So, the idea of two strikers together, would mean, returning to the traditional Premier League’s long lost 4-4-2. Whatever might be the tactics and formations, Chris Hughton has done a great job in identifying the weak spots and filling them with some very good players. The first game of the season is against Everton, and that game might be an early indication of how good Norwich have become from the last season.
