Friday night sees the glorious canaries head to Wales for a match-up with Swansea City, a team that since we beat them 1-0 at Carrow Road earlier in the season have quietly got into their rhythm and have tracked us from there on.
As usual there has been plenty of discussion about the game and what to expect in the Vital Norwich Forum. This particular thread was started by Forever yellow 76 and also features the usual observations from FC Bears who was keeping an eye on Daniel Farke’s pre-match press conference.
FY76: Ok, huge game as we all know. Avoid defeat must be the remit, a win would be huge and put eight points between us.
Without Emi I’m yet again worried that we will be slow in the middle with our build up, and Pukki is worrying me again, looking jaded and slow to get his shots off.
I would hope Mario will be dropped for this game, he never takes his starting chances, only looks good off the bench or on free kicks!
I am concerned with Pukki being off his game. To keep in the top two we have to have a forward that’s bang on it.
Would you sub Mario for Maclean? I would.
I would like to see Dowell playing as I know there’s a player in there waiting to perform.
Would you keep faith with the frustrating Platcheta? If only the lad had a finish he could be lethal.
I really hope that Connor Hourihane doesn’t keep up his scoring record against us, his signing is a massive show of intent from the Swans.
FCB: Be nice to see DF try something different. All players fit. Same players who were out before are still out.
DF says this on the draw with Boro:
‘I don’t have any doubts in my mind, the lads are doing fantastic and deserve all the praise. We spoke quite honestly and said we wanted to finish in the top six this season. This league is about consistency, when I judge our last performances against Middlesbrough they signed two new players, players from injury came back and they were just outside the top six.’
We also had players back from injury and a new player. Seems a strange comment.
He also said that against Boro we had key players missing.
‘We played without key players and didn’t allow them one chance against us. ‘
I don’t think we had many, if any, key players missing and they had three shots to our zero on target and had 12 shots at our goal.
Sometimes feels like DF is watching a different match to me. Maybe that is why he doesn’t make subs because he is watching another match!
He also says that Krul only needed to make one save against Boro and we were the better side for 75 minutes.
DF doesn’t sound 100% confident about tomorrow:
‘We’re going to Swansea and we’re going to try our best in a difficult situation, this is our third game in six days. Emi is unavailable, Jordan Hugill is unavailable, Adam Idah was out for months, Onel Hernandez was out for months, so I’m not expecting any miracles.’
A win is not a miracle. Bl**dy hell, all these miracles.
DF now says that it is really tough for him/us because we have no options to swap things about or change the system.
So why didn’t we go into the market for a new forward then?
He also says that if Hugill was fit he could have played up top with Pukki and given us a different option. When Hugill was fit how many times did DF play them together?! Just sounds like excuses.
‘Emi is a key player, it makes a difference when he’s available. Jordan Hugill was fantastic in recent weeks, we could mix it up because he’s completely different to Teemu Pukki. We could play them together or mix up our game a little bit more. We are a bit more flexible, it’s always better to have a few more options. Right now it’s difficult because we have to stick to the same players who are available and they have to deliver in all three games.’
Strange comment again because we do have Idah – Dowell – Hernandez – Sorensen who could come in and mix things up.
He said that the same players have to play in these three games as key players are out……..What? For me, Emi is the only one who’d be in the 11 if fit and Hugill would be on the bench. DF is making out that we are missing lots of players.
DF says that Placheta needs his team mates to make the key passes to him as he is not there to make the key passes. We need to put the passes into him so he can use his pace.
DF says that Pukki is a different player when Stiepermann, Emi and Hugill are not playing with him. Sounds like he is making excuses for Pukki’s poor form of late.
Sounds like DF would take a point from Swansea right now. Saying any points we take back are important. He says that they haven’t had time to think about Swansea – I hope they have.
DF says he can’t rotate the squad at the moment. Am I missing something?
FY76: He can rotate. I know a few not had many minutes mind, but they can play a good sixty odd minutes. Boro did that with the new guy they started (Bolasie) and he’s not played for about a year! I hope its just mind games to try take pressure off us, but if DF really thinks top six is acceptable now he’s having a bubble bath!
Tough one as I would like to see “Gianno” (that is his short name now 🙂 ) get more game time. I’d go:
Krul
Aarons
Hanley
Gibson
Gianno
Skipp
McLean
Cantwell
Dowell
Hernandez
Pukki
FY76: Bookies have made us 7/5 favs!! Mad that imo. Swans are 2/1, I might just put a few quid on the Swans, so if we do lose at least I’ll make a few quid!!!
OTBC
MAJOR actical issues for Norwich – we need to to break / counter attack far quicker. We give teams way too much time – after they have attacked us – to regroup and get in their defensive shape. We are almost embarrassingly polite in letting the other team get back into shape before starting play again. Krul should be instantly bowling the ball out for a quick counter attack/transition after a failed attack by opponents, not bouncing the ball up and down for 10 seconds plus and allowing our opponents players to all get back into their midfield and defensive positions. Similarly, when we win the wall back in open play, we need players playing direct, quick (high risk) through balls before teams have got time to regroup and get their defensive shape back. Norwich are often facing a bank of 5 defenders and 4 midfielders and it’s like trying to thread through an eye of the needle. We need to counter attack/transition when we win the ball far, far quicker, giving our strikers more space to make runs and attack the space behind our opponents’ defenders.
Additionally, we could also focus on a more concerted intense press, with midfielders higher and man marking players to make it much harder for other teams to actually pass through our press. Just having Pukki or one or two other players chasing high is not – in isolation – an effective pressing strategy. It has to be an organised team press where tight man-to-man marking across the pitch make it hard for other teams to pass through the press and are forced to go long.