The 2019-2020 season.

We are going to have to agree to disagree on that one Robbie. IMO a system is only as good as the players who implement it. Zonal marking or man to man marking at corners? Both work if the players do their jobs - both fail if they don't. IMO we lost to Villa because they have players like Grealish - we haven't. We lost to West Ham because Godfrey didn't do his job. On each of the four goals we had more defenders than they had attackers - nothing wrong with the system - but each time Godfrey went walkabout and we lost 4-0. It seems that the difference in class between the Championship and Premiership is wider than ever and, quite bluntly, we never stood a chance no matter who the Coach was or what system we adopted.

 

I have no quarrel with your saying that we played a system that our players weren't good enough to play successfully at EPL as opposed to Championship level. I have been saying exactly that all season; if you want to play like Man City, you need Man City quality players. We haven't got Man City quality players, so don't send them out to play as if we had. What I'm complaining about is DF's insistence on trying to play like that, and his refusal to adopt a different strategy except when his hand is forced, e.g. when he feels the opponents deserve sufficient "respect" to justify him changing his approach (basically when playing one of the top clubs). Apparently clubs in the lower half of the league don't deserve that level of respect! Yet they beat us, time and again, one after the other, even those engaged in the relegation battle. They did so precisely because our players are not good enough to play as DF asked them to play at EPL level.
Where I disagree with you is when you say "we never stood a chance, no matter who the coach was or what system we played". I posted some stats on the "Some Thoughts on Farke" thread (July 4th) which supported my claim that our best results point-wise came when we didn't try to "dominate through possession", but rather allowed our opponents to dominate possession and hit them on the counter. This is what we should have been doing against every team we played; if we had, I really believe we might have survived.

 

Did your stats take into account the fact that earlier in the season Pukki was scoring goals but after that he couldn't hit the proverbial cows a!!e with a banjo. We created a fair number of chances but nobody took them and I cannot see how a system change would have remedied that but it is of course a matter of opinion..

 

Just looking at expected goals and assist stats for the Prem season, across our entire squad, the total xG is 37.5 (25 goals scored) and xA 28.38 (18 assists). So the headline stat is that our conversion was poor. The chances were there to score more goals, we didn't convert.

To look at individuals:

• Pukki xG 11.52, actual 11 goals. xA 3.62, actual 3 assists. So despite Pukki's form falling off a cliff, across the season he's scored the amount of goals you'd expect from the shots he's had. Now there's definitely been occasions in the second half of the season when an in-form Pukki would shoot at different moments, but in general his shot conversion has been about right.
• Todd xG 5.68, actual 6 goals. xA 2.32, actual 2. So Todd has scored more than you'd expect from his chances, and he wasn't creating huge opportunities that went begging.
• Drmic 2.93 (1) & 0.95 (0). Probably most shocked by the fact Drmic had an xA of 0.95, hadn't realised he'd created anything all season. Biggest underperformer in terms of chance conversion.
• Byram 2.19 (0) & 0.36 (0). Remember him missing a couple of sitters, which probably accounts for his xG. Astonishing that it's higher than Buendia across the season.
• Buendia 2.17 (1) & 7.19 (7). So probably could have scored another, but assists is about right.
• Onel 1.91 (1) & 0.92 (2)
• Stipermann, Vrancic and McLean all have an xG and xA about 1, returning 2 goals and 1 assist between them.
• The only other significant xG or xA figure is Max Aarons with an xA of 3.9 (second highest in the squad, but 1 assist in reality)

So in terms of underperforming, it's not been our front 3. Our central midfielders neither created chances or took shots that would lead to goals. Our CBs had a combined xG of >2, but failed to score between them.

To compare us to Sheffield United:

• McGoldrick xG 8.72 (just 2 goals scored).
• McBurnie 8.06 (6)
• Mousset 6.17 (6)
• Lundstram 5.92 (5)
• Sharp 4.14 (3)
• Fleck 3.25 (5 goals scored, only overperformer)
• Egan 2.69 (2 goals)
• Everyone else has xG <2.

Overall xG 46.7 (scored 36), xA 36.19 (25 assists). When you discount the woeful figures McGoldrick put up, the numbers basically balance.

So to compare the two sides, you can see that we've been incredibly dependent on Pukki all season, so any dropoff in performance from him would be keenly felt. Whilst Sheffield United have rotated their striker(s) more, their midfielders have chipped in much more than any of ours - but have scored as many as the chances deserved. They haven't been lucky.

In terms of defensive stats, Sheffield United do hugely overperform. From open play, set pieces, corners, direct free kicks, even penalties, they've conceded less than would be expected. Whether you believe that's luck or good coaching is up for debate! Incredibly they conceded 3 penalties and conceded just once.

Norwich defensive stats were a lot worse. Expected goals from open play was 54, we conceded 53. (Sheffield United xGA 38, conceded 32). We weren't unfortunate to concede 12 goals from corners - that's exactly what our defending deserved.

 

Pukki suffered his toe injury on 14th December in the 1:1 drew with Leicester. At that point he had scored 9 goals, and we had accumulated 12 points.
If you look at where we gained those points (the matches against Newcastle, Man City, Bournemouth, Everton, Arsenal and Leicester), 9 out of the 12 came in 5 games where change was forced on DF (by quality of opposition or the need to halt a dire run of results) and we played primarily on the counter from the start. The exception was the second game of the season at home to Newcastle, the only game in 38 we managed -- courtesy of a woeful Newcastle performance it must be said -- to win playing full-on Farkeball. If, with your main striker in form, and the rest contributing an equal number of goals (Pukki 9, the rest 9, total 18), it turns out that 75% of your points are gained playing counter-attacking football, why on earth would you persist with the approach that had garnered the other 25%?

 

@DHCanary
Do you have the xG and xGa stats for individual games? Are they available anywhere?

 

https://understat.com/team/Norwich/2019

 

Just noticed our xG vs Man City was the highest we had since lockdown.

 

I'm not surprised. We played counter-attacking football!

 

Thanks DH.

 

Though it's open to accusations of 'sour grapes', this from Matt Howman sums up the situation rather well:

"Once the dust settles and games are underway again, fixtures coming thick and fast, fans will remember how great the Championship is. Although the Premier League is the holy grail which every club aims for, it’s a soulless, commercial entity which has sucked the life out of the game and replaced it with robotic refereeing, endless advertising and a pay to win structure."

 

I can well imagine the loud collective groan that would have reverberated round Norfolk if we had after all survived ......

 

Genuinely, yes. That summation of The Premiership exactly squares with my opinion of it. Three football teams with a chance of winning, a further three constantly making the top six and fourteen others making up the numbers. Soulless sums it up really well in one word.

 

Just checked my bank account,rebate for last seasons missed games has been returned.
£220 + ,so a nice amount.
Still paying next seasons ticket though.
Can' t honestly see us attending any Carrow Rd games anytime soon.

 

The BBC Football website today has a Post-Lockdown "Winners & Losers" table covering not just the EPL but La Liga and the Bundesliga as well. Bayern Munich occupy top spot, having won all their post-lockdown games, while we occupy bottom place, having lost all ours. Even the Bundesliga's bottom club Paderborn managed better than us. I knew it was a mistake to let Sir Benny go!

 

BBC website has an article about football results since lockdown. I quote:
‘The Canaries were the only team in the top two divisions of Europe’s top six countries who failed to pick up a single point following return’ (from lockdown).
Why has DF still got a job? Sorry, just seen post from RobbieBB

 

Tifo Football put out a podcast discussing the hot prospects from relegated sides in the big European league. They are big fans of "Sreeebeny".

 

Probably because he got us promoted on a shoestring budget and didn't have any money to spend. Maybe you might suggest a realistic alternative?

 

I'm not convinced there's many managers about that could have kept us up with the resources that DF had at his disposal and none of those that maybe could have done better would have wanted to manage us.