Norwich: the best attack in Championship?

 

Photo Source: @NorwichCityFC Twitter account

13 goal in 4 matches is the score collected so far by Norwich: the Canaries, after the managerial change from Smith to Wagner, seem have changed their approach, moving from a conservative one to a more proactive behaviour, which is taking some dividends, considering that they are the best attack in the league and they earned 10 points in 4 matches, getting the second place behind Leicester.

I try to figure out which are the solutions adopted by David Wagner in order to unlock the firepower available upfront. 

4-2-3-1 IS THE STARTING BASE

The typical line-up of Norwich in this season is a 4-2-3-1, the starting 11 of the last 2 games seems to be the preferred one by Wagner. The roster at disposal of the former Huddersfield manager is not really young (27 years old the average age of the players used so far, only Sheffield Wednesday and WBA have an older average age in Championship), however there seems to be the right mix between young players and experienced players.

In the next paragraph I will show how the 4-2-3-1 is developed according to the phase of play.

WIDE POSITIONING IN BUILD-UP

One of the main pattern of Norwich during build-up play is related to the creation of the maximum width in order to open the spaces between opponent's players and progress the play centrally. Here is an explanation on how it works.

Based on the above it is normal, then, to see the four players composing the back line spread for all the width. Having this structure allows Norwich to recognize the strategy of the opponent in pressure and identify the solution to progress play. In this case Huddersfield decides to retreat in a mid-block leaving the lone forward between Duffy and Gibson while the two wingers remain linked with the two number 8 creating a 4-1-4-1 structure ready to jump on the fullbacks Stacey and Giannoulis in case Norwich moves the ball wide. Norwich recognizes that moving the ball externally could trigger a trap which Huddersfield can create with the help of the sideline. In addition to this, the two midfielder McLean and Sara are man-marked getting then difficult for the center-backs to reach them. Also from this example we can guess which is the solution used by Canaries to maintain the central progression: movement without ball of the four attacking players.

In the screenshot above we can see Barnes dropping between the two midfielder: the scope of this movement is to give an additional option to maintain the central progression. Due to this movement of the former Burnley forward, Hogg is required to make a choice between following him or let him go allowing the creation of a numerical superiority in the central zone. If he chooses to follow Barnes then there is space behind between the lines occupied by Sargent (then Idah) dropping back and Fassnacht cutting inside from the right wing. The defensive line then should choose if tracking the zone between the line leaving space behind to be attacked by Rowe or by Sargent himself or covering the space behind allowing Norwich to take control of the central zone in the last third. In this way Norwich was able to manipulate the man marking in the progression zone and dictate the tactical context of the game.

HOW TO CREATE AND USE SUPERIORITIES

The manipulation created by the movements of the attacking players allowed Norwich to create superiorities on the pitch, those superiorities created the circumstances under which Canaries created the opportunities to score as they clinically did against Huddersfield. The 13 goals scored so far are coming from a cumulative xG equal to 9.59 (according to Wyscout) which is the second best in the league behind Southampton.

Wagner created different situations allowing Norwich to have superiorities to use to progress play and finding routes to finalize the actions. In this example Canaries are using the movement of both Barnes and Idah to create numerical superiority which can have the double function to allow keeping the ball and circulating by having a player free to receive and at the same time to move the shape of the opponents team to find spaces behind. The movement of Barnes and Idah dropping deep allows the two full-backs to push forward and occupy the width in the final third, while the two midfielders remain connected to the build-up phase, thus creating numerical superiority (5 vs 4). In the screenshot you can also see how Norwich try to exploit this superiority: the central defender passes the ball to Idah and at the same time suggests him to go to McLean who is free to receive and carry the ball. This situation allows the creation of other superiorities in advanced zone.

We have seen before the positional superiority, namely the situations in which opponents should decide how to cover the space behind the first line of pressure (so the space between midfield and defence and the space behind the defensive line). Norwich poses threat both between the lines and also in depth and width. In fact the movement of right winger Fassnacht cutting inside together with other complementary movements of left winger Rowe and also by Sara and Idah centrally give the opportunity for Canaries to occupy both the space between the lines and also to attack the defensive line. In this example Idah and Barnes are still coming deep attracting the two Huddersfield central midfielder while we can see also Rowe who tries to attack the defensive line with a run behind, his movement is complemented by left-back Giannoulis cutting inside from left and Fassnacht from right (not placed in the screenshot), therefore creating a situation where both the spaces between the lines and behind the defense are occupied.

The position assigned to the players was not fixed, therefore Norwich created a lot of rotations with the purpose to attract the man marking of Huddersfield players and then play behind. In this example we can also see the central midfielder Sara trying to attack the space between the centre-backs split by the movement of Idah who, similarly, rotated position with Rowe in order to contest the aerial ball generated by a long pass from central defender, since the forward is more skilled than Rowe in aerial duels principally for the different physical structure of the two players.

Due to those movements, Norwich was able to generate several threats by using rotations which created positional superiority between the lines and also dynamical superiority when the ball was moved to the wings by using the overlapping movements of the full-backs or when vertical plays behind defensive line rewarded the runs without ball of Rowe, Sara, Idah and Sargent. Occupation of the width of the field and the right vertical staggering of the players during build-up and progression phases allowed Norwich to create several potential and actual threats to the opposition team allowing them to use their dynamical superiority and quality superiority to move the ball quickly and find the free man. This was enough so far to dominate Huddersfield last Saturday and for being the most scoring attack of the Championship.

Will this be enough to come back in Premier League? Just wait and see.