Upon signing for City towards the end of August, for a fee rumoured to be worth up to £5 million, Jordan Hugill was awarded the number nine shirt and billed as the heir to great Grant Holt.
But, three games into the new campaign, it is yet to become clear how prominent his role will be this season.
Speaking to Norwich City’s official website following his arrival, Hugill said: “For me, the aim is to get this club back to where they want to be and for me to prove a point. I’m a big, physical presence who will batter a defender around, so quite old school, but I’m also a very powerful striker who can get in the box and on the end of things.”
Such words led to him becoming a cult hero almost immediately with the City faithful, and it was clear why the early comparisons to Holt were made, but Hugill is his own man. To have those comparisons and expectations thrust on his shoulders from the beginning was a big ask, particularly when Holt didn’t have a former Championship Golden Boot winner in Teemu Pukki to compete with.
Hugill began well with a goal against Dynamo Dresden in a friendly win and was given the chance to impress in the disappointing League Cup defeat against Luton Town, a match that saw Norwich have over half the squad unavailable due to international call-ups.
That day, Hugill endured a frustrating competitive debut as his new side failed to provide him with the right service as City lost 3-1. Since then, Hugill has had limited minutes to impress in the three Championship games since.
Hugill was an unused substitute as Norwich beat Huddersfield in the season opener, with Adam Idah coming on instead to grab the headlines and get the match-winning goal. This in itself was a big call as Daniel Farke looked to the youngster to provide a spark rather than a proven and established Championship goalscorer sitting on the bench.
In the next game and with Norwich trailing 2-1 and needing a goal, Idah was again preferred, coming on in the 63rd minute to help the Canaries draw 2-2 with Preston.
However, on this occasion, Hugill did manage to step foot on the pitch but was introduced in the 89th minute and had little time to influence the game.
In last Sunday’s defeat in Bournemouth, Hugill got just nine minutes of normal time to influence proceedings.
With just 10 minutes of normal time spread across three Championship matches, it’s been tough for Hugill to make an impact.
The club invested a considerable amount of money in the 28-year-old and I felt he was signed with the future and form of Pukki still in question. However, with Pukki seemingly set to stay at the club and with a goal and an assist in the opening two matches, in addition to Idah’s pace and versatility, Farke looks set to keep faith with Pukki as his main man, leaving Hugill to ponder how he breaks into the first XI.
I find the situation curiously similar to City’s last Championship campaign when another Jordan, this one Rhodes, was signed for the first-team on a season-long loan from Sheffield Wednesday.
However, due to the form of Pukki, he was removed early on in the campaign and was unable to reclaim a starting spot. His role for the rest of the season was primarily from the bench late on, starting just nine games, coming on as a substitute in 27 matches and being left unused on the bench in the other eight (missing just two against his parent club Sheffield Wednesday).
My worry is that Hugill will experience a similar fate and be left to brief cameo appearances from the bench.
At 28, Hugill is in the prime years of his career and needs a club where he is regarded as the main man. Having got his fingers burnt in a £10 million move to West Ham that saw him feature in just 20 minutes of Premier League football in January 2018, he rediscovered his form with 13 Championship goals last season as QPR played to his strengths during a season-long loan.
For Hugill to work at Norwich City, he needs games and for the team to adopt an approach that will suit him. I find it hard to believe that while Pukki is in situ that Hugill will get that opportunity.
With the club having endured a rather underwhelming start to the season with a win, draw and a defeat, we know what Pukki can do. Now please Daniel, let’s try a Plan B.
Agreed, like Gibson I do wonder if they think what have I done. We have rained crosses into the box know Pukki isn’t that type of striker to get on the end on these crosses.
I applauded the purchase of Hugill as that offers a plan B and other options . know it is early days yet a long way to go, but how on earth will he and Gibson show us. Frustrating yet again
If Plan A doesn’t work, execute plan A better.
A great quote levelled at Bielsa’s approach and I can’t help but agree with this. Hugill is just such a different type of player, that it means Plan B has to be so different from Pukki, that it means sizeable tactical tweaks to implement which means deviating greatly from how we will be set up all week.
That said, I’m an armchair general – Farke of course, will no doubt disagree.
Maybe we are all looking at this in the wrong way, maybe Gibson and Hugill are Webber recruits and not in the mould of a Farke buy,
Farke likes skillful players that can read the game and pass either short or long as neither if these really fit into this discription so they don’t get a lot of game time but is he cutting his options for a plan B in half.
Maybe he want these 2 to get familiar with his style of play or waiting to see how they fit in once the transfer windows gave closed especially the domestic on the 16th October.
With 10 players out on loan 3 with injuries, 4 that may leave and no mention of Klose since he last played unless their is going to be some transfers in we could ve left with a bare bones squad if anyone else gets a bad injury and not forgetting loss of form.
Being a city supporter we have seen the good, bad and real ugly times we never seem to gave a happy mediocre season but we need to kick on and talk of Farke out is premeture and who is there available to take thus squad on a failed Herr Warner, Cowley Brothers, or numerous others that gave been dismissed for failure at other clubs.
Farke needs to improve again and he knows that so give him a chance.
Onwards and upwards
OTBC
Stay safe and stay healthy
My problem is that Farke May have bought Hugill but is wedded to a system that excludes him except as a last minute throw of a desperate dice.
The obvious tactics of Championship managers will be to defend high and use big defenders to bully our relatively slight attacking midfield and striker.
In Hugill we have a striker who will bully the defenders, but will Farke use him to do that.
Sadly I don’t think so.
I think he’ll stick to playing out from the back, zonal defending and pointless majority possession in our own zone and central midfield. Playing the oppositions game.
Why Farke plays Pukki, its because he is way better striker than other options. Only right solution is that Norwich let Pukki leave, he deserves to play in better leagues than championship is and it means also that he get to playing together with better players. This situation is also unfair to Drmic, who is not so bad player as norwich fans believe. 100% sure is that Drmic would be Norwich nr 1 striker if Norwich would do right and let Pukki leave. Norwich is mediocre championship team, which game plan to be better is that Pukki makes the difference. Nothing has changed, your team just is not at all so good in championship as you believe. You forget fact, that Norwich was not even close to get promoted before Pukki came. If Pukki or his agents does not understand that if he keeps playing in championship and in norwich team he will loose his national team starting line up place. Playing in championship just is not enough anymore and if norwich team overall quality gets even lower then it affects to him too. Hugill is so limited player that its difficult to see player like that playing outside britain, its amazing that football in England does not happen much improvement. All best managers and players are foreigners in premier league. Still many seems to believe that solution would be things like fighting spirit and kick and rush “football”.