It’s going to take a bit of getting used to.
No more Parklife. No more celebratory olés. No more ‘topics’. No more being ‘greedy’. No more trendy parkas.
Life is about to change in NR1 and for some, that’s going to be a toughie. And I get it. Despite being the club’s first continental manager, it felt like Daniel Farke really got Norwich, Norfolk and Norwich City.
In fact, no other City manager in my lifetime – other than Dave Stringer, for obvious reasons – has been able to tap into the hearts and minds of the Canary faithful in the way Farke did.
And it was that, as well as the sometimes-scintillating football, that saw us take him to our hearts. And, typical of the man, never in the history of football has there ever (at least by the sound of it) been a more amicable parting of the ways.
Dignified and classy. That was Daniel. And that’s what has made it doubly tough to take for some of his most devout fans.
The positive, however, is that if you had to pick another manager in English football who shared those same qualities, it would probably be Dean Smith.
And now he’s the one tasked with getting a Premier League-type tune out of a group of players who have so far failed to deliver. One win, albeit in our most recent game, is the slimmest of slim returns from a squad that most of us agreed would, at the very least, be competitive.
They haven’t been.
Team Farke had cracked the how-to-win-the-Championship code but were some way off doing the same for Premier League survival. That particular formula proved elusive.
But, as Smith eloquently explained during Wednesday afternoon’s presser, he agrees with most of the Canary Nation in that he too believes the group of players at his disposal is capable of achieving 17th or better over the next 27 games.
He said all the right things, as you would expect from someone who’s been around the managerial block, but said them eloquently and with conviction. And it’s not the fact that he’s a nice guy that makes him appear a good fit for City; that’s more to do with his CV and his footballing beliefs.
Equally, he’s under no illusions around the size of the task, especially, I suspect, after reportedly watching five City games from this season on his flight back from New York. In the 1980s, they’s have been deemed video nasties.
When asked the obvious, your first priority? question, he didn’t even need to draw breath:
“We want to make defensive organisation and structure stronger,” he said. “I think there’s enough quality … We won’t go away from the type of football that the club has been known for, but fans should expect to see an organised, hard-working team who won’t leave anything out on the pitch. Hopefully, they can enjoy some good performances.”
As so… Southampton. The team that signaled the end of his tenure at Villa Park.
Smith and his assistant, Craig Shakespeare, have just two days’ worth of training to put a team together for the Saints and will, I’m guessing, use as a starting point the XI that won at Brentford.
But Smith did make it clear the door is open for Todd Cantwell and Billy Gilmour. The slate is clean and while we may not see wholesale changes for Saturday’s game, further down the line this team will have a different look and feel to the one with which we have become accustomed.
It will also likely be a different version of 4-2-3-1 we’re used to, but with regards to tomorrow I’m going to go with a similar lineup to that which started at Brentford with, maybe, Gilmour in the central midfield slot currently occupied by Kenny McLean? And if Cantwell’s fitness is of a suitable level, I expect him to be on the bench. He was involved in yesterday’s first training session, so one assumes he’s been handed back his place in the first-team changing room.
At centre-back, the current holders of the shirts are Andrew Omobamidele and Ben Gibson, and judging by the sight of Grant Hanley meeting Smith alongside Christoph Zimmermann in the treatment room, this game may come just too soon for the Scot. He was, however, involved in said first training session so it may boil down to match fitness.
If it comes too soon for Hanley, given that Smith is likely to want an experienced head in the middle of his back-four, it boils down to a choice between Omobamidele and Ozan Kabak next to Gibson. If the Scot is fit, then expect a return of the Hanley/Gibson combo.
Mathias Normann will be a shoo-in, as will Teemu Pukki I’d imagine, but the four players betwixt and between are anyone’s guess, although the fact Smith is a known admirer of Milot Rashica puts him in pole position for a start.
Ironically, as things stand, Dean Smith – with Saints having been Villa’s last opponents – probably knows more about the Southampton line-up than he does his own, but it’s no bad thing that he and Craig Shakespeare have so recently done their homework on how Ralph Hasenhüttl sets his team up.
Against Villa, it was a twist on the traditional 4-4-2, with James Ward-Prowse and Oriol Romeu forming a formidable engine room and a front pairing of Adam Armstrong and Ché Adams.
The Saints’ width tends to be provided on the left side by Normann’s Norwegian team-mate Mohamed Elyounoussi, while on the right side, Scotland’s Stuart Armstrong tends to tuck in and bolster the Ward-Prowse/Romeu axis while in possession, but still with responsibility to offer protection to right-back Tino Livramento when without the ball.
It’s a tried and tested formula and, after a slow start to the campaign, tomorrow’s visitors are in good form. Their three wins and a draw in their last four is the type of form we can only dream of right now but is the type of run desperately needed to kick-start the Smith era.
Quite what’s about to unfold won’t be revealed until 5pm tomorrow but I do already sense a greater belief in the team’s ability to beat the drop now that Dean Smith is in the house – perhaps borne of the new coach’s own bullish belief that this group is good enough to achieve.
Before I go, one final thought:
In season 2004/05 under Nigel Worthington, City had a similarly slow start to their Premier League campaign and didn’t achieve their first win until well into November.
The date: 20th November. The score, 2-1. The opponents…… Southampton.
You never know.
On the Ball City…
Given me Goose Bumps, your final observation!
I cant be present tomorrow, (one daughter will be), but I can almost feel the buzz, the atmosphere in the old place will be electric come 3pm tomorrow.
Dean Smith is just starting out on his canary journey and I wish him well, when it ends if he is held in the same high esteem afforded to Daniel Farke then he will have done a great job.
I get the feeling City are on the verge of turning a corner with results, we’ve solid foundations carefully laid. I fancy we could be ready to make progress., a big few weeks ahead that’s for sure.
Great to see Sam Byram playing again, good luck Sam you are a fine player.
Good read Gary and you mentioned my fav era the 80’s . Yes two days isn’t a lot of time is it but we will see if they get the new manager bounce . 3 PTS would be a great start fingers crossed 🤞
As far as I can recall this is the first time we’ve made a change at this stage of the season since the arrival of Glen Roeder. Smith is also one of very few managers that we’ve ever appointed to have previously managed another team to a higher league position than us (Roeder again and Rioch are the only ones I can think of).
Hopefully he will do as Roeder did in his first 6 months – keep us up (albeit that was in the Championship) – and the similarity will end there.
Everybody knows we need to be harder to beat – Farke said it himself – so it’s going to be interesting to see how Dean Smith goes about achieving that. We all want to see Cantwell, Gilmour, Dowell, Rashica, Tszolis, PLM, Placheta and Sargent show us what they can really do. Sadly closing down space, putting in ball-winning tackles and breaking up opposition attacks don’t seem to rank very high in most of their skill sets.
Perhaps there’s a role for Sorensen who showed last year that he can read the game, even if he isn’t a particularly imposing presence. I wonder too if one of the younger full-backs, Williams or Mumba, has the ability to play inside alongside Normann.
I agree there’s unlikely to be much change in the next week or so though, except surely Hanley will return asap – he hasn’t been out long enough to have lost match fitness has he?
Good point Keith, re Big Grant. Should be OK I reckon.
Press conference today said everyone is fit, except Zimmerman. Even Sam Byram is going to get a 45 minute run-out this evening for the under 23s. Hopefully he lasts all 45, and can build up from there.
*Hopefully he [Dean Smith] will do as Roeder did in his first 6 months – keep us up (albeit that was in the Championship) – and the similarity will end there*.
Spot on Keith, spot on.
LOVE the ‘final thought’ Gary, and a win is not unattainable, is it?
Norwich v Southampton is one of the fixtures we would want to win, after all!
Who’s on the bench will be almost as interesting as who starts for Norwich City, I would expect to see the whole squad wanting to be in with a shout on Saturday! Kabak’s fit, and I was quite happy with the way Gibson and Omobamidele handled their game at Brentford.
As for Southampton, I believe I read somewhere that Redmond is available for the visitors so we need to be ready to contain him, and the two Armstrong’s, pretty well.
Whatever happens, its a bright new beginning, will we see a positive Placheta, a rampant Rashica, or a cheeky Cantwell trying to feed a perky Pukki?
Cannot wait, roll on Saturday!
Cheers all,
COYYs !!
My always neutral opinion is that he seems to be very stereotypical british football coach, hard working and trying was how he described his football philosophy. He likely lead by yelling when results are not good and is not so interested and does not have enough understanding about tactical issues. His cv is not strong, Walsall, Brentford, Aston Villa. Brentford became better when he left and everyone knows that Grealish was basically Aston Villa. Problems started right away after Grealish left and he couldnt adapt. Daniel Farke seems to be first and only foreign manager which Norwich have had and now get back to british football in league which has become more and more international. Foreign players made contracts when Farke was manager, they have every reason to be worried.
If Norwich loose tomorrow, situation gets right away worse than it was never with Farke.
Buendia is a foreign player. He left farkes team to join smiths.
It didnt really go as well Villa hoped? Buendia gets more money which was his motivation, Aston Villa does not have realistic chance to win premier league and not even theoretical. Buendia is not also anymore Norwich player, you should move on and think him too as enemy if you are Norwich fan. I was talking about Norwich foreign players and their very possible football cultural shock which seems to be difficult to understand for british. Then some have been only short time in there so they have also living culture shock going on. We shall see who adapts and who dont, but when they wrote contract then manager was german with his different football philosophy.
Do cheer up 1×2.
Watch Ted Lasso on TV and you’ll be fine!
Im bad at watching tv-series. I do admit that I watch sometimes emmerdale, american tv-series I have watched 2 and half men.
You’ll love Ted Lasso, American show about English football Apple TV
Hi Gary
Great article and preview for this game.
I expect come Sunday all the pundits will either be shouting that city should have stuck with DF if this all goes badly wrong or praising SW if it goes the other way.
Southampton are on a good run but always seem like another City in that they are always close to a giant Hiccup and over the years have gad as many if not more maulings than city have.
Redman, R Davis, Bowyer, Townsend and Super Ted all played for both clubs so a lot in common let’s hope that all 3 points stay in Norfolk at 5pm on Saturday then I will wish them a good season.
I think and hope you are wrong 2×1…. I think this will be the start of a new era for Norwich, even if it isn’t this season. Eddie Howe was my preference but City waited to long and missed him, but in Smith i am 100000% confident. He was a a manger I’d wanted for a long long time…. DF’s coaching was always flawed, our out-of-possession shape was crap throughout his tenure and he was always destined to fail at this level unless he sorted it out…. And clearly this season that hadn’t happened. People talk about not replacing Skipp and Buendia but on the pitch, Tettey is the biggest loss and DF’s teams have always looked vulnerable without him…. Even in the chump last season Skipp single handedly recovered situations he shouldn’t have been able to. Such issues are going to be very very obvious to Smith from Saturday onwards, and it’s unlikely to be an easy fix.
The often over looked issue is not the coach or the club, it is the social environment in which the players live. Going British after a 4-5 year period of continental management is not a bad thing. Players have to be happy living in Norfolk and that means a very finely balanced squad, and we presently don’t have that balance, and it was getting worse…..too many players and too many continental players who, with respect, aren’t going to be excited by the Prince of Wales thug-fest on cold and windy autumn night,
I expect a couple of British reinforcements in January that will re-address that balance, maybe Hourihane and Ben Davis for example. Let’s say Sam Byram spends the next 3 months blitzing his recovery, Williams proves himself on either flank…. And Cantwell proves the necessity of carrying the ball…. Dribbling…. Between the midfield and forward lines…. And I think there is a recipe for success that would be just as pleasant on the eye as anything REALISTICALLY VIABLE from a continental coach.
I want to be clear, I think this squad is garbage because it is missing key ingredients and until January, I don’t think Smith will be able to do much more than make us harder to beat. Judge him later in the season when his own signings can reinforce what is already here.
Personally I think S & S Smith & Shakey will quickly realise they’ll. need 3 CBS, they will need Normann, they will need Cantwell and or Rashica and such a lightweight midfield will probably need to be compensated for in numerical overloads. I’d expect, not until Smith has some experience with the squad, 3-5-2-1 with 10 men behind the ball when we are out of possession.
A move towards 4-2-3-1 is likely later in the season after the start of an overhaul.
Im 100% sure that you are right about new era in Norwich and I would guess that squad will be mainly british when he gets to building part.
Not literally mate, just swinging the balance.
This is ONLY an issue because of the strong possibility of relegation, because relegation means a need for continuity for 2-3 years yet. If we were confident of surviving, you can ‘cycle’ through young foreign players before they get frustrated and (politely) bored in little old Norfolk. What is very difficult is when your key players, Buendia is a prime example, is already restless whilst you are in the Championship and wants to move regardless of promotion. The psychology is exacerbated with inappropriate recruitment: for example this season take your pick of disgruntled players because they don’t play enough: Idah or Sarjent, Rashica or Tzolis, Cantwell or Dowell, Williams or Mumba, Sorensen or Placheta, Andy O or Kabak. You can’t keep them all happy and the danger is when the better player gets bored,
This is why, in my opinion, it is important to say to someone like Hourihane or Ben Davies “y0u can’t play 90 mins, 30 games a season at a bigger club than Norwich, with 27500 fans every single week. This is your most magnificent platform, enjoy it, be a hero, stay here for a few years and raise your family here”.
Krul would be 35 at the next promotion, Pukki would be 33 and he’s no ever-young Billy Sharp, McLean and Hanley have been here for a long time already. The senior players in the squad, on longer contracts, are PLM and Gibson, and they borderline at this level.
So succinctly, I just think they need a 2 or 3 British guys to come in and put an arm around Hanley and others and encourage fresh social circles that would encourage those guys to stay….. and keep the correct balance Of younger players, wherever that balance is from.
Such a hard concept to express without upsetting some people!
No zonal marking would be a bonus, I’d stay almost the same as Brentford. Gilmore is overrated and Cantwell falls over too much for me. I like Smith. I like the way his sides play. 3pts tomorrow with run of games coming up the future looks almost bright!
If you’re about tomorrow. will try n say hello bud!
Going to Carrow Road this afternoon in an apprehensive frame of mind. At Brentford City were competitive but I thought that was as much to do with Brentford’s lack of quality as City’s improvement.
I remember the loss to Southampton at Carrow Road when football restarted after lockdown. That loss destroyed the fragile confidence established after the win at Spurs in the FA cup and set us on the path to relegation. Today we must at least be competitive.
I hope that we stick by Omobadidele who looks a footballer and an athlete. Rashica should be a starter having begun to show real promise. Lees Melou is also adapting well. And please, give Gilmour a start,. He has been part of the Scottish revival and could do the same for City.
I was at Carrow Road for Worthy’s first win in the Premier league. Win again today and City will have real grounds for optimism.
Correct, the Bees were poor. Nothing other than organisation can magically change. There still won’t be an ideal midfield pairing or threesome, there still won’t be a wave of the wand and Pukki will instantly have a partnership with any of the strikers and attacking midfielders and Gibson and Hanley won’t suddenly compensate for the solidity of a back 3.
This is a time where we will need to be patient although I’m sure we will see immediate improvements in structure all over the pitch.