Promotion back to the big league
Hello World of Football, I'm happy to join your community and hope to share some thoughts and insight into the team I've supported for as long as I can remember, Norwich City.
Thanks to the short break at the end of the 2019/2020 season, we were able to keep most of our squad following relegation. The likes of Tim Krul, Max Aarons, Teemu Pukki, Todd Cantwell and my personal favorite Emiliano Buendía proved themselves to be good Premier League players and outstanding Championship players. Probably the most important person to stay was Daniel Farke.
When a team does well, consistency is often mentioned. Eddie Howe at Bournemouth, David Moyes at Everton and probably the greatest of all, Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United were all given time to embed themselves within their respective clubs and succeeded as a result.
I am expecting us to perform better in 2021/2022 than we did in 2019/2020. Our squad is very settled and the players I've mentioned were added to instead of removed from with Oli Skipp (loan), Ben Gibson (loan) and Jakob Lungi Sørensen added to the squad.
In my opinion, we looked a much better team this season than we did last time we were promoted. We were much more solid defensively which saw us conceding far fewer goals (and also scoring fewer). If you are interested, Oliver Walker wrote this impressive piece on the statistics behind our success and here are a few points that stood out to me.
- Kenny McLean and Oli Skipp anchored the Midfield well allowing the likes of Max Aarons to roam forwards
- Grant Hanley made the most interceptions and the most clearances of all center backs in the Championship
- We had more possession than any other side in the division
- Buendia played more passes into the opposition area than any other player
- We are much better prepared for the Premier League than last time.
I like the last point the most.
With a full summer break and securing promotion early, we should have more time than most other teams to gets some transfers completed. I have no doubt that we will be sensible again and we've already signed Ben Gibson and Dimitris Giannoulis on permanent deals and Farke has said there's more to come and hopefully that means Oli Skipp will sign next, watch this space.