We’re approaching the halfway point of the season, and time for half-term assessments. Only an idiot would offer such a report before it’s necessary, and especially after a dismal and morale-sapping defeat.
So here goes.
First, as usual, we must dismiss some craziness. With Alex Neil’s greater emphasis on solidity since the nightmare at Newcastle, we’re now hearing “it’s Hughton all over again”, “we never learn”. Sorry – the change since Newcastle shows exactly the opposite: we ARE learning.
Since Newcastle/West Brom, we’ve had fixtures against Man City, Chelsea and Arsenal. Without a change in approach, we’d have conceded a hatful in those games. To come out of them with a point and a goal difference of -2 may not be exciting, but it’s surely no less than we’d have realistically targeted (and a lot better than Paul Lambert achieved with us).
In the middle, we beat a Swansea team whose possession game would have caused us all manner of problems if we hadn’t adjusted. No wonder the columnists and readers of this site were praising AN’s pragmatism and smart thinking just a week ago.
A week is a long time in football, as in politics. Watford was awful. At the start of the season Russell Martin (remember him?) asked us to try and be more even-tempered than in the last relegation season, to resist getting too euphoric over wins and too gloomy over defeats. That was always a big ask, and has proved too big for many of our fans.
Let’s try to step back dispassionately and make some sense of the season so far. Only if we can do that is there a chance of sensibly assessing the future.
With the perspective that we’re the least rich club in the Premier League and have a correspondingly modest squad – a theme I’ll come back to – how have we done so far? Of our 15 league games, I’d argue that 4 have been exceptional performances: Bournemouth, Arsenal and Stoke at home (but for the inspired Jack Butland we’d have won that one by two or three), Sunderland away. Three have been clearly below standard: Southampton, Newcastle and Watford.
To cut short some potentially long arguments, I’ll reluctantly add home to Leicester or West Brom to the below-par list. We didn’t look good in those games, though my own view is that we lost them – as against Palace on the opening day – to greater Premier League experience and street-smartness rather than to playing poorly.
It’s therefore a mix: a quarter of the games better than we could reasonably expect, a quarter worse, half on par. That half includes some performances from which we rightly took encouragement, such as the visits to West Ham and Liverpool.
If that sounds complacent, of course it shouldn’t. Our aim and focus is to stay in the Premier League, we know it’s possible but we need to find ways to pick up more points than we have recently. Do our manager and Board have what it takes?
Newcastle marked a turning point in Alex Neil’s approach, of course. The wide-open, come-and-attack-us Norwich of that day has not been seen since (and personally I hope it never will be).
It’s been replaced with a pragmatic structure and pragmatic team selection. The accusation that AN doesn’t know his best XI is clearly not true. The fact is he’s decided to pick a team for the opposition we’re facing – hence the re-emergence of players like Wisdom, O’Neil and Grabban.
The problem – perfectly encapsulated by the pair of games against Arsenal and Watford – is that the effect has been inconsistent. Individual selections, team mindset and tactics all looked spot-on against Arsenal, and horribly off-key against Watford.
Within the pragmatic approach that I believe he’s wedded to, can Alex fix the problem and inspire more Arsenal/Swansea performances while cutting the Watford ones? He’s such a quick learner and resilient character that I believe the answer’s yes.
But what about the squad? We made big bids for quality players, especially central defenders, at the end of the summer but couldn’t get the deals over the line. There’s no doubt we’ll try again in January; the Board fully recognises the need to bolster the squad if we’re to have a sporting chance of pulling clear of relegation.
In that sense I’ll have to agree with those who point to the January window as crucial for us. Yet it’s not the be-all-and-end-all.
As we’ve seen with Robbie Brady, the addition of quality players can make a difference; we may be able to add 2-3 of them to the squad in January. But that still means our fate will lie in the hands of the other players, the ones already at Carrow Road. Will they, under Alex Neil’s leadership and their own qualities, pull us through?
A question for debate. Again, my answer is yes.
OTBC
Still feels like the hughton era. An opinion are entitled based on the fact its boring and feels like we cant score. Under hughton we looked ok against the big sides and poor against those around us after all…
Nah, don’t buy it. The Newcastle games still rankles based on how poor they are and the majority of games since have been hard to watch, let alone enjoy (can’t say we’ve learned a great deal, actually). We’re here once more when it simply feels like we don’t have goals in us, so Jan will be imperative. You also play up to the small team card and olay us down as we should have beaten arsenal, got a point in manchester and Chelsea were woeful – simple as that. Not seeing out results won’t keep us up and you wont be saying we’ve taken learning’s if we go down, which looks likely if we don’t spend big in Jan.
I sincerely hope that supporters like Toad and Jimbo are in the minority. Because with their attitude, we have no chance.
At the beginning of the season, I wasn’t overly concerned, I thought we had plenty and there were certainly worse teams/squads than ours. However, as the season has progressed I am more concerned. I don’t like the new pragmatic approach and I believe AN will ditch it soon. We are at our best when we concentrate on what we do best not worry about others.
AN has shown he has quality in the Transfer Market (Brady/Mbokani) and I believe he will know what is required. I suspect a few may be on the way out as well.
To me, this feels a million miles from the Hughton campaign. AN is clearly trying new things (Hughton never did) and the squad is much better this time around.
Clearly confidence is low at present but that can change quickly.
As usual for us in the premier league we struggle, their is no progress with the team, like ie Southampton have done. We have to beat teams around us which we have not been consistent at doing and grab a point off the top six.our defending and goals tally are woeful but we are playing in the premier league, our squad is half decent but at the moment we are a long way off safety.what ever happens we will keep supporting AN and the team otbc
I’ve said it before, no one will care to remember how we only lost to Chelsea & Man City by one goal if we haven’t won enough games to stay up. Norwich’s biggest problem is – and always has been – succumbing to that ‘we can’t compete’ mentality in the Premier League and we’re starting to do it again. Yes, we got spanked under Lambert but he always competed and we stayed up, didn’t we?
Alex Neil gave us our belief back and he kept it until we lost to Newcastle. Then he panicked. He needs to trust and believe in himself again. As do we.
Well losing to the big boys by just the odd goal IS important – we are only out of the drop zone on GD remember. These players are punching above their weight every week. Sometimes the wheels will come off. I think we are just about where we would expect to be, it’s just that we started the season well, especially performance-wise, and that raised everyone’s hopes.
I agree the squad is low on quality, but people are kidding themselves if they think we’re going to spend our way out of trouble in January. 1 or 2 additions that are fringe players at other Prem clubs, Naismith and the like, that’s all we’ll get. No big names.
We need our 16 or so core players to raise their game, rediscover their enthusiasm and their willingness to fight for the cause. And us fans need to help them do it.
I just don’t get the negative comments. We are no different than every other club. It seems that only Leicester, Watford, Stoke and Spurs fans are happy everyone else is moaning! We are Norwich City the lower reaches of the premiership is as good as it will probably get these days so just enjoy. We’ve done okay so far and I reckon a decent run awaits AN knows what he’s doing but our full support is needed otherwise fear of failure takes over,”Come on you Yellows”.
Thoughtful article and I agree. We currently find ourselves in the bottom 3 on goal difference, but for the majority of the season the football fare on offer has been of a decent standard. What that says to me is that we probably aren’t quite good enough. There is a difference to this team than the last one under Hughton. Firstly, we can get back into games when we go behind (something that was entirely absent in that relegation season) and secondly the type of football on offer is entertaining (again something that was missing in that relegation season). I missed the West Brom game at home but I can’t say I’ve seen a poor match at Carrow Rd this season (with the exception of the first half against Everton). We look like we can take points off any team if we just get that bit of luck at right moments in the game.