Podcast: How do Norwich City improve their attacking output?

Podcast: How do Norwich City improve their attacking output?

Solving their attacking issues feels like the barrier limiting Norwich City’s early progress under Johannes Hoff Thorup. 

The Canaries’ boss vented his frustration at their inability to construct more chances after their 1-0 defeat to Swansea in South Wales on Saturday in a performance littered with individual errors.

City had big chances to rescue a point late on but, for extensive periods of the contest, failed to convert promising spells of possession into something more substantial.

This was a topic discussed on our long-running Pink Un podcast with host Connor Southwell, Paddy Davitt and Sam Seaman discussing how City take the next step to ignite their attacking work in the Championship.

The conversation that we’ve had around structure and style of play – a lot of that group are still adapting to that. In terms of coaching, speak to people who have, they say that teaching a team to attack and score goals is the hardest bit. So maybe it’s no surprise that is yet to come, Sam?  It does feel like in the build-up and defensively, Norwich are looking pretty good and have adapted pretty well to life under Johannes Hoff Thorup, but I can see why people are concerned about the final third. A lot of it is about getting players used to it. You’ve got a few new players who are still learning how to combine with each other and each other’s movements – that is a hard element to add to a team but also there are elements that don’t feel like they are down to players getting used to the environment or the physicality of English football. Most of it has been simple passes, controlling the ball well in tight areas – just technical elements. The likes of Amankwah Forson, Ante Crnac and Oscar Schwartau, it doesn’t feel like adapting or developing a tactical understanding; it’s more about a poor individual performance where these players aren’t showing the level of talent many expected when they arrived in the summer. There are concerning elements regardless of the transitional elements.

On that point Paddy, Norwich recorded more unforced errors – 33 times they were dispossessed and miscontrolled the ball – than in any game this season. At half time, the stats suggested they’d completed 53pc of passes in the final third. When you dig into those numbers, it underlines the whole conversation about individual quality, or lack of, in attacking areas.