Guardian writers’ predicted position: 17th (NB: this is not necessarily Paul MacInnes’s prediction but the average of our writers’ tips)
Last season’s position: 1st in Championship
Odds to win the league (via Oddschecker): 2,000-1
Whatever happens next, Norwich City will always have last season. In 2018-19 the club achieved something incredible in the Championship. They finished as champions with 94 points after scoring 93 goals. Their football was, at times, sumptuous, a possession-based game that thrived on pace out wide and technical players unlocking space in the centre. They had the division’s player of the season and golden boot winner in the shape of Teemu Pukki and, according to the EFL, in Max Aarons they had the best young player in all three divisions. They added 34 points to their previous season’s total. And they did it with a gross spend of less than £5m after a two-year fire sale of talent.
Of Norwich’s three Premier League promotions during the past decade, this one was the best. The sporting director Stuart Webber and head coach Daniel Farke responded publicly to promotion in the way you might expect; they were straight on to the next challenge and the ‘mountain’ that needed climbing to stay in the top flight. But there will have been a part of them that wanted to stay in the moment, just to take in the enormity of what they achieved.
The relevant question is to what extent Norwich’s past performance will be indicative of future results. Was last season a fluke or just year one? Did Norwich romp home because they were that good or will they be exposed against tougher opposition? Before a ball has been kicked, the critical consensus is tending towards the latter.
There are reasons for this. The first is encapsulated in the statistic, revealed by Opta, that Norwich exceeded their expected goals by 20 last season. This means that the team did much better in front of goal than the chances they created would normally merit. On the one hand that’s great; Norwich excelled. On the other, there’s the old saying that everything reverts to the mean. Norwich cannot bank on outperforming in front of goal again, and certainly not against a higher calibre of opposition. When you factor in many of Norwich’s superb results involving late comebacks, this might be a worry.
There are other numbers that could be a concern. Such as the fact Norwich had the eighth-best defence in the league, conceding more than Nottingham Forest and Stoke. That they shipped 17 goals from set pieces, the sixth-highest total in the league, is a bad omen when roughly 20% of Premier League goals come from this source. Another odd number is that they were dispossessed more often than any other team (perhaps not shocking for a side averaging 55.4% possession, but a stark contrast with Sheffield United, who were dispossessed the least). Boil all that down and you get something like this: Norwich will either have to tighten up or go goal crazy for a second time.
How likely is that to happen? One way of shoring up the defence would be to recruit. But Norwich have been parsimonious, spending £3.75m to this point. The figure includes a small fee for Sam Byram to West Ham, though the full-back is expected to serve largely as a squad player. There has also been the loan signing of Ralf Fährmann from Schalke, a goalkeeper who looks likely to replace Tim Krul and comes with a strong pedigree.
These deals reflect Norwich’s broader transfer business under Webber; they look to acquire undervalued assets. Or to put it another way, repair damaged goods. Fährmann, after several seasons as one of the Bundesliga’s best keepers, lost his place to Alexander Nübel last year. Byram went to West Ham from Leeds as one of the best prospects in the Championship, but played fewer than 2,000 Premier League minutes in four seasons as he succumbed to injuries.
Similar stories can be told of City’s two other signings, recruited to bolster the attack. Patrick Roberts was one of the most talked about teens in England when he signed for Manchester City from Fulham. He failed to break into the team however and, last season, struggled to make an impact on loan at Girona. Josip Drmic is a Swistzerland international with Champions League experience but has spent two of the past four years injured and made two league starts for Borussia Mönchengladbach last season.
Norwich say they have no choice but to operate in this way, adopting a ‘self-financing’ policy in response to their last Premier League season in 2015-16 and relegation that left them holed below the water line. A suspicion remains that there is more money should the right player become available but the likelihood is that Norwich will have to find the solution to staying up from within.
And that’s where the good news starts. Webber has unearthed no shortage of bargains. Some have been feted – Pukki and playmaker Emi Buendía in particular – but there are several more. Marco Stiepermann joined in 2017 from Bochum as left-back cover. He finished last season as an unconventional No 10 whose physicality and distance shooting consistently unsettled defences. Tom Trybull was a free from Den Haag but had claims to be the Championship’s best defensive midfielder, with league-leading interceptions and pass success in his position.
Thanks to Webber, Farke has had good raw material to work with. The 42-year-old has then excelled at getting the most from it. Norwich’s defence may have been leaky but they were also highly inexperienced. The average age of Farke’s preferred back four was 21.75, with 26-year-old captain Christoph Zimmermann dragging up the average. Zimmermann was Farke’s captain at Dortmund II and left the Championship having stepped up his level and become an embodiment of the physical commitment demanded by the coach. He played alongside Ben Godfrey, a 21-year-old who shares an agent with Rio Ferdinand and a few other qualities too. A superb athlete, the former midfielder is highly accomplished on the ball and a goal threat with feet and head. The full-backs, Jamal Lewis and Aarons, came from the academy and share the qualities of pace, determination and good judgment.
It is far from impossible that City’s rearguard learn from their experiences and improve. (This is particularly true if Fährmann provides a more reliable presence than the occasionally skittish Krul.) A similar logic applies going forward, where 29-year-old Pukki is surrounded by youngsters. Will the Finn repeat his 30-goal heroics of last season? Unlikely. But is he playing in a team suited to his strengths and with a year of successful experience? Yes.
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The same goes for pretty much every player, the majority of whom signed new contracts this summer. There are no square pegs in round holes and, to switch metaphors, no bad apples. Just a well-balanced squad of well-coached athletes playing with freedom and little expectation. Yes, they’ll get walloped and the goals will surely not flow as freely. But the club has a plan, a style of play, and proof that it works. There is no doubt the odds are stacked against the Canaries, but those odds might also undervalue their strengths.
