Throughout the season Chris Hughton has tried and tested various different formations such as 4-1-2-1-2, 4-4-1-1, 4-4-2 and now 4-3-3. Hughton has also made some quite radical personnel changes in all areas of the pitch including the swapping around of all his strikers, wingers and centre backs with some changes obviously being enforced by injuries. However what I think Norwich fans are starting to see is a man who has the complete respect and backing of his players. A man who is also respected in the media because his passion for the club is so great that it is now reflected in the way his team play. Each player fighting for each other to grind out results, which at times is not easy on the eye, however it is a basis on which improvement can begin.
The amazing thing about Norwich this season is whenever there has been some mumbling from the boardroom that if Norwich lose he’s going to be fired, his team pulls off an amazing result out of nowhere. Now this is no coincidence! And only emphasizes the unity in the camp at the moment.
A lot of sides down the bottom are leaking goals – and Norwich, to be fair, did that earlier in the season. But Norwich fans have got to remember Hughton signed a lot of players in the summer, and as Tottenham fans will tell you, it takes a while for those players to settle in. Norwich gets good results from their defensive solidarity, and with Joseph Yobo and Sebastian Bassong at the back, it looks like Norwich have a very promising partnership starting to develop. The balance is perfect with Yobo being a more ball playing right footed centre half whereas Bassong is your typical big bruising centre half who will win you headers and is left footed creating a nice balance.
There has been much talk about Norwich’s last four games and rightly so. They were horrific! However one of the oldest football clichés is that you take one game at a time and that’s the message Hughton will be telling his team. Another cliché is that, in football anything can happen as long as you have belief and this team certainly has belief, even if half of the supporters and the likes of David McNally don’t.
Norwich look more than equipped to stay up and I believe they will. A good way to look at it for those pessimistic Norwich fans out there is, are there three worse teams than you? I’d say definitely. Norwich have a good tightly knit squad of players and a top manager, which is why I’d go as far as saying I think they’ll stay up quite comfortably.
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