Bethnal Yellow and Green

Had operation and out for 3 months (minus the one week since the op).

It isn't against FA rules - but may have been part of the contract arrangement that they wouldn't be allowed. Crawley may feel they don't want to play Mason due to split loyalties or to prevent such accusations - imagine if he were to miss a 90th min pen that could knock Norwich out - some may accuse him of doing so intentionally even if there was no such intention. He's out injured at the moment so it might not be possible for him to play anyway.

No way would Hanley have not marked the man he was assigned to. In a zonal system defending teams generally have their best headers of the ball in the areas of most danger. Hanley and Godfrey were doing those roles. In the 2 half Norwich stopped man marking VVD at corners and concentrated on not letting the ball get to him - which worked much better than having Lewis pick him up.

Apart from being at fault for the Newcastle goal and almost allowing Joelinton to score a head at 0-0.

Another interesting analysis here with a slightly different take to the Cano one. https://medium.com/@jonathanblathwayt/norwich-v-newcastle-61a4826ac6a9

Webber isn’t really a stats guy. That is the realm of other people in the recruitment team. The ‘money ball’ aspect of Norwich’s recruitment is over played a bit (and they will be the first to tell you that). Kenny McLean’s data was actually pretty bad but they signed him off the back of physical scouting after trips to watch Maddison. Webber spotted Pukki a few years back and tried to get Wolves to sign him when he worked there, but Wolves didn’t go for it. Norwich got a bit lucky with Pukki, although they liked him, no one really thought he’d have this kind of impact and was initially signed as back up to Rhodes. No data was used in the signing of Leitner - Farke knew a loan was possible and pushed Webber to do the deal, he wasn’t even scouted.

Full game is here —> https://eplfootballmatch.com/norwich-city-vs-newcastle-united-full-match-premier-league-17-august-2019/2/

I suspect his recruitment at Leicester was more luck that any great insight or he had good scouts/analysts there who he didn't take to Everton. You so often see it with Sporting Directors that they are amazing at one club and awful at the next - Monchi's time at Roma being the biggest example of this.

That was more Steve Walsh's doing on the transfers than Koemans, who I don't think had much say in that.

I really like Sheff U and there is far more to them than just an organised defence. They really went for Palace and a well drilled Hodgson team is a hard thing to break down. I suspect as the season goes on McGoldrick will give way to McBurnie and they will get a few more goals. History has proven that teams that concede fewer are more likely to survive than teams that score more - so they might be onto a good thing in terms of survival.

Aww Gawd - if Merson is backing us to stay up then relegation is almost a certainty!

He was really inconsistent - but I think I saw him looking woeful far more than he looked good. It could be he was being sold short by his defensive partners, and I think there is certainly something in having a good centre back next to him, to tell him where to stand. Even with his success at Wolves I'm glad I don't have to see him play for Norwich again and trying one of the 60 yard diagonals he thought he could play - which always went straight out of play. Noticeable that he doesn't do that anymore at Wolves.

That is some pretty good rewriting of history. Seb was player of the season in his first year at Norwich - Martin played well and scored vital goals many times in the Prem and Whittaker was also good for Norwich in his first season. The fact Ryan Bennett is playing well now, doesn't change the fact he was often awful when playing for Norwich - I think he is far more suited to a back three, as the fact his positioning can be horrendous is less exposed with extra men back to cover for him. Nuno is a very good coach and has drilled all his defenders well, Conor Coady was a midfielder at Huddesfield before joining Wolves for £2m (one of Webber's first sales at Huddesfield) and has done exceptionally well at Wolves after converting to defence.

Chelsea's high press looked pretty good against Leicester - Pulisic (unsurprisingly looked very good at it). Will put a lot of pressure on the Norwich defence and midfield. Their defence looks pretty ropy though and if you can play through the press then should be able to fashion some good chances. Will be a very stern test against them, and after this game and West Ham away, will get a much clearer idea of what Norwich's level is this season. They'll be desperate for their fist win and would have preferred if they got the result yesterday.

He only scored once from outside the box last season - he is very much a 18 yard box player. He also only scored one with his head and joked afterwards that he only gets one a season. The way to stop Pukki, and it sounds obvious, is to keep him away from your goal. Although he is relatively quick but not so fast that teams can't play a high line against him (unlike Vardy). I wonder if we will see the more sensible managers realising that the best defence against Norwich is a high line - teams that sat back against them last season usually suffered in the end. Without Hernandez's pace Norwich might struggle more against a high line at the moment as well - the Chelsea game will be interesting as Lampard twigged that a high line was a good tactic against Norwich last season when he pushed his defence up really high in the Carrow Road game after Norwich scored the second goal. Swansea also played a very high line which Norwich struggled against. I'm not going to get too carried away by Pukki's goals yet - Newcastle probably put on the most inept Premier League performance I have ever seen and played into Norwich's hands perfectly.