City played well, stood up to the battle, were easy on the eye and looked solid for long periods, but narrowly lost thanks to a bit of bad luck and some questionable defending.
Sound familiar?
The venue was different, the personnel slightly adjusted (Daniel Farke made four changes to his starting eleven from the 2-1 defeat by Leicester City) and more new additions had arrived, but in the end the headline was the same as City lost 1-0 to Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium: The Canaries played well but came away with nothing.
Summed up perfectly by Farke: “We are disappointed because we are not playing for warm words or for great performances. We are playing for points.
“From minute 20-25 on we were on the front foot, dominated possession, dominated this game, brought the game a lot into Arsenal’s half, created many good situations. Sadly, we missed a little bit this cutting edge in the final third.”
That recurring tale seems to be becoming a staple of the early 2021/22 season as it was in 2019/20; no doubt a worrying parallel for the City boss as he seeks to avoid the same fate as in that dreadful campaign.
Admittedly there were no good performances in the Project Restart era of that campaign, but the opening throes of 2021/22 (excluding their dismal 5-0 loss to Manchester City) bear an eerie resemblance to late 2019, when the Canaries turned in excellent performances against the likes of Wolves, Sheffield United, Tottenham and Arsenal without defeating any of them.
It must, of course, be noted that at this stage nothing is decided, and while the Gunners remain in crisis, their squad far outstrips Farke’s for experience, market value and technical quality. The same can be said for the Canaries’ three prior Premier League opposition.
What City will be keen to avoid is the development of this early trend into a long-term pattern.
As will repeatedly (and perhaps patronisingly) be said in the coming days, there were positives to take from the defeat. Brandon Williams, for example, was excellent both defensively and in his role as a key part of building attacks from the back.
However, one suspects the Manchester United loanee – very used to winning as a habit – will grow tired if he’s often required to repeat his sentiments from the Arsenal defeat.
Williams was composed when required, aggressive when necessary and responsible for the moment which most felt like a symbol of luck changing. When Nicolas Pepe’s close-range effort was superbly blocked on the line by the 21-year-old, it hinted at an end to the trademark lack of fortune for his new club.
What’s most frustrating about that moment, and many like it, is that the closer City came to flipping the script, the more closely the script was adhered to; the Canaries’ hubris highlighted in painful irony.
It had looked for so long like Norwich were turning the tables on Arsenal, only to find themselves dazed and exactly where they have been in the latter stages of most Premier League games under Farke.
There also appears to be no cure. The symptoms have been repeated so often that City’s misfortune is clearly no coincidence, but if the only antidote is game management, experience and nous, there’s very little Farke can do between now and January.
In fact, Stuart Webber’s summer recruitment was designed to improve upon that weakness, adding the experienced Pierre Lees-Melou and Ben Gibson (permanently), but there has been little improvement in that department thus far. Perhaps Mathias Normann is the solution.
City’s new Norwegian was withheld yesterday after a busy international break and very little time to learn his complex role, but Norwich desperately needed somebody to control the tempo of the game, to stem the flow when the time between waves of Arsenal attack grew shorter as the second half wore on. It seems inevitable that Normann will start at Carrow Road against Watford next weekend when a win seems vital already.
And with that sentiment comes nagging Jamal Lewis’ words in a recent interview:
“At Norwich, in the Premier League, it’s like, ‘OK. Cool. Dust ourselves off and go again.’ At Newcastle, it’s like, ‘No, that’s not good enough. We need to do this, this and this’.”
If you do nothing different then things remain the same.
I hope I’m wrong but it feels a bit like we’ve bought all these players, only now we have to figure out to use them. When, of course, it should have been this is how we play, let’s buy players who fit the system and who will improve us.
Brandon Williams actually shows us the scale of the task. He can’t get into the Man Utd team yet excels for us. Same for Gilmour although we haven’t seen his best yet.
If I were DF, I would ditch 433 and revert back to 4231. Lets do what we do best. And if that means some favourites get left out, then so be it.
It’s not exactly working out for Newcastle though, is it?
I would disagree with a little lacking in the final third to completely lacking in the final third. You are never going to win games unless you score goals and Norwich have a serious issue with this which has not been rectified from two seasons ago.
Teemu Pukki is a great servant to the club but is a one trick pony and is not good enough for this league. Bringing on Strikers at the traditional Farke 80 plus minutes is not going to allow anyone else to develop or have reasonable time playing within that team. Examples from the last two seasons with Hugill and Dirmc.
To stay in this league you need to be able to score 50 goals and that is a big ask from our midfield and forward line
If things don’t change up front it will be back to the championship!
Is Pukki that much of a one-trick-pony Greg?
From what I’ve seen, he’s coming up against Premiership defenders who possess the ability to shepherd him away from his often most effective tactic – namely to receive the ball and dribble into their goal area before taking a shot. They know if he gets that chance he can be lethal!
We know he has a fearsome foot, perhaps he should nullify the defender on his shoulder by receiving, and blasting off a shot from the edge of the box instead – so don’t give the defender a say, put the onus on their keeper to make saves – once defenders realise they have to deal with that too, they will be on the back foot a bit, and he becomes more than a match to break them down.
Not to mention scoring some iconic goals for us!
Also, he never really seems to have a City player close enogh to him, to be able to hold the ball up, provide for others – get that sorted, we get more shots on target, we get more goals – from Pukki and from others.
A lot could change as the squad blends, so I wouldn’t be too quick to write Pukki, or Norwich off as yet!
OTBC !!
Quite right Gunn!
We’ve come up against four of the best clubs in the land (despite Arsenal’s unfinished predicament), and we got no points for playing any of them. There are still 34 games to go – thats 102 points up for grabs.
It’s a bit early to be dressing in funeral clothes for the burial of NCFC!
We haven’t even integrated the new players we bought with the players we already had, it takes time, training and playing together.
Our optimum fitness and our best squad fit have not materialised as yet courtesy of International Football interruptions – thank God that load of tosh is over, now we can get on with the day job!
When one or two jaded players stop thinking ‘I’, start thinking ‘We’, get that out of their systems, when the new guys start to meld and weld with the old guys, we’ll have a good team and squad quite capable of going toe-to-toe with the rest of the Premier League.
Sometimes we’ll win, sometimes we’ll lose, but I still think we’ll stay up,
COYY !!
“City’s new Norwegian was withheld yesterday after a busy international break and very little time to learn his complex role…” 😂😂😂
Ludicrous team selection. Note Man Utd didn’t rest Ronaldo who hadn’t played for TWELVE years at OT.
As I have said elsewhere, if you want to win (or just get a point) then sometimes you have to do terrible things. It is no good looking nice, getting thrashed in the Prem, before doing the same to others in the Championship. We are going to have to make our own luck and if that involves ugly football against the big clubs then so be it. They don’t want to have to face that – especially a rocky Arsenal defence – so we have to gives ourselves a chance.