Norwich vs West Ham Tactical Preview 11/07/2020
Norwich have been dire since the resumption so of course they’re perfectly set up to get a win against West Ham.
In their 5 post-lockdown games, they’ve managed just 50 shots, only breaking double figures twice, with only 9 of those on target. They’ve been low on quantity and low on quality too; they’ve generated over 1 Expected Goal in a match once, clocking up sub-0.5xG against both Arsenal and Everton.
Farke has chopped and changed his personnel from game to game, so it’s hard to draw too many conclusions. What has remained is the general 4–2–3–1 team shape and a commitment to playing out from defence:
Alex Tettey (27) sits in front of the defence alongside a more technical central midfielder (usually Kenny McClean, although it was Mario Vrancic vs Watford).
Onel Hernández has been reintroduced to the side since football returned and the Argos-loving Cuban winger has been Norwich’s most advanced attacking player. He’s been limited to the equivalent of 11 90 minute games but he’s Norwich’s 2nd highest shot taker per 90, with 2.2. Only 0.51 of those hit the target though, and his xG per shot is 0.06, making Hernández a relatively high volume, but low value shooter.
What he really excels at is dribbling. He navigates tight spaces well and is the sort of inside forward who runs directly at defenders, forcing them into making decisions. He’s completed 34 successful dribbles across his 11 90s and 8 of those have resulted in shots. Given our frailties in the full-back areas, he could pose a threat.
Someone who has posed less of a threat lately is Teemu Pukki. After a hot start to the season, Pukki’s goals have evaporated; he’s managed just 4 shots in the 5 games since resumption (2 of those were appearances from the bench, however). It’s easy to point the finger at a striker if he stops scoring but you have to determine whether the side have stopped creating the same sort of chances that he was finishing earlier in the season and unfortunately I don’t have the patience to sift through every chance Norwich have created to figure out whether this is the case or not.
The slump since the restart might be a lack of sharpness but I think it’s probably down to his team’s general dysfunction more than anything else. He’s basically bang on his xG for the season (12.4 xG, 10.9 of which is non-penalty vs 11 goals), so maybe he’s just levelled out and is an average finisher.
Back to the average position maps though, and the most fascinating aspect of Norwich is clearly Emi Buendía. Look at the positioning of number 17: he’s theoretically a right winger, but his average position ends up in the centre circle.
That wouldn’t be unusual if he was an Arjen Robben type left-footed winger who spent all of his time in the opposition’s half, but Buendía’s a floaty number 10 type creative midfielder who basically seems to do everything, everywhere for this team (other than score goals himself).
Buendía is his team’s primary creative force, creating 76 shots with his key passes — next highest is Cantwell with 35. Those passes were of decent quality, too, with an xA of 7.4 resulting in 7 assists.
Although he gets puts into a right wing position on the teamsheet and formation graphics, the reality is quite different. Here’s his touches from the Watford game:
The boy roams absolutely everywhere across the opposition’s half looking to get onto the ball.
Contrast the range of Buendía’s touches with the right winger for Watford in this game, Ismaila Sarr:
Very much a traditional, chalk-on-your-boots wingers by comparison.
Even looking at the touches of Onel Herández — a stereotypical inverted winger who wants to come inside all the time — provides a very different touch map to Buendía’s:
More touches in the centre of the pitch, but nowhere near the range of his Argentine team-mate.
You can get a taste of what he’s all about in this clip from the game against Watford. As Norwich work their way out from a goal kick, their right winger finds himself playing in the left hand channel:
Buendía’s positioning and movement in Farke’s system reminds me a bit of the way Lucas Moura plays for Spurs, with Aurier pushing super high to offer the width down the right so the winger on that side can take an interior position:
West Ham (and Aaron Cresswell in particular) really struggled to deal with Moura’s movement against Spurs and he was constantly able to find space and get involved in attacking moves by ghosting inside from the right wing:
It’s easy to see Buendía posing a similar sort of problem if that issue isn’t identified early on.
You might assume that Buendía’s roaming offers an opportunity: with him seeking the ball all over the pitch, surely he’s leaving his full-back exposed?
Unfortunately not. As well as passing like a number 10, Buendía defends like a right-back and gets through an almost comical level of defensive activity: he’s won the most tackles of any player on his team (55/83); 58 of his tackles have come in his defensive 3rd (2nd best is Jamal Lewis the left back with 40); he has the 2nd highest total of tackles in his middle 3rd; and joint-2nd highest in the final third behind Onel Hernández.
It’s the same story with Pressures: Buendía clocks the highest in Norwich’s defensive 3rd (290), the highest in their middle third (320; McClean is 2nd on 256); and 2nd in their attacking 3rd (144, roughly half as many as striker Pukki).
Buendía puts in a shift all over the pitch for Norwich. Of course, part of that might be down to teams feeling like they can attack Norwich’s right side, which gives Buendía more opportunity to do this defensive work, but his success rate across these metrics suggests that’s not the best plan. The bloke covers an enormous amount of pitch for the Canaries in almost every phase of the game. Antonio generally drifted to the left on Wednesday night to try and find space away from James Tarkowski but adopting the same tactic here might not work quite as well.
It’s not just Buendía’s creativity in front of goal that highlights his ability on the ball. He has Norwich’s most passes into the final 3rd (142); 2nd most passes into penalty area (57); and most progressive passes (215). He influences every phase of the game and managing him is key to keeping Norwich quiet.
Outside of their goalkeeper, Godfrey, McLean, Buendia, and Aarons have the highest total progressive distance with their passing. They all play very few high passes, highlighting their commitment to passing out of defence — if you want to prevent them from building out from the back, you need to press the Aarons/Godfrey/ Buendía combo down their right and also keep an eye on McClean in the inside left channel. Buendia, the full-backs, and Godfrey also have the highest progressive distance when it comes to carrying the ball up the pitch, so curtailing their space and time in possession is important.
Aside from Buendía, the other passing hub of Norwich’s team has been Kenny McClean, who acts as a deeper lying passer and has racked up 121 passes into the final 3rd; 19 passes into penalty area; and 150 progressive passes. Mario Vrančić played that role in the last game and has 29 passes into the final 3rd; 5 into area; and 44 progressive passes, despite only playing 6 90s.
I don’t know if they’ve been doing this all season, but since the resumption, Norwich’s passing central midfielder has dropped back in to make a third CB in the left back zone when Godfrey and Klose have the ball, which allows Norwich to push both of their FBs high and wide:
That creates a 3–4–3 build-up shape, reminiscent of the way Arteta was getting Xhaka to drop into that space when Arsenal were playing a back four and the way that Nemanja Matic has been doing a similar job for Manchester United lately:
Against Bournemouth and Chelsea, teams dedicated to passing out from defence, we’ve seen Moyes try to press aggressively to create turnovers. Given the levels of fatigue we have, it’s difficult to see that being viable anyway, but the way Norwich structure their build-up presents difficulties for our shape:
If we want to press man-to-man against their CBs to try and win the ball high, whoever is playing as our 10 has to stay connected to the striker and the two wingers to make sure that Tettey can’t offer a short outlet pass. There’s also the difficulty of Souček deciding if he should follow Norwich’s number 10 if he drops deep, because that leaves 3 central Norwich attackers up against Diop and Ogbonna.
There’s a lot to be said for allowing the Norwich defenders to move up the pitch with the ball and then press the pass they make to initiate a counter attack, rather than pressing the defenders themselves:
Out of possession, Norwich haven’t been an ultra-aggressive high pressing team. They defend in a 4–4–2 shape and rather than pressing the opposition CBs, they cut off access to the central midfielders, either by man marking them or by playing very close to one another in order to shut off passing lanes:
We don’t tend to progress play through our CMs often, so perhaps this won’t be much of an issue to us, but it does provide opportunities for an overload elsewhere on the pitch when we go longer.
The good news is that Norwich have a terrible set piece record — their 14 goals conceded is the 2nd worst in the division. In part that’s down to a lack of size throughout the team, exemplified by their two FBs, Aarons and Lewis, winning ~35% of their aerial duels. It’s also perhaps a reflection of their problems at CB: each of the senior central defenders they have on the books has missed a decent chunk of games throughout the season, causing a lack of continuity in the centre of defence.
Their FBs in general seem exploitable. One way Watford had joy was by having Sarr pin himself onto Lewis, who marked too tightly, got too physical and gave away sloppy fouls in dangerous areas of the pitch.
Watford capitalised on this by picking out Craig Dawson with crosses, leading to their equalising goal.
The keys to winning this game for West Ham:
- After rightly receiving a lot of criticism for his side’s complete lack of invention and for the way they played into Burnley’s hands, this is probably a game where sending in 37 crosses in a game might actually prove fruitful for Moyes. Watch us completely fail to do this now.
- Disrupt Norwich’s build-up structure. Find a way to deal with a midfielder dropping into a 3–4–3 shape when they play out of defence. Trying to press aggressively might not be the best way of creating turnovers against this side. Let them come forward and make mistakes in possession.
- Figure out who is dealing with Emi Buendía. His movement off the ball across the whole width the pitch is going to be a major issue for us, just like it was against Lucas Moura. The organisation and communication between Cresswell, Rice, and whoever is playing that role on the left of midfield needs to be clear; the division of responsibilities needs to be clear; the method of marking needs to be clear. If it’s not, Buendía has the ability to hurt us.
- Make the most of set pieces. It’s important every week but none more so than here. Norwich are extremely vulnerable from corners and wide free-kicks. We need to make them count. (As an aside, against Burnley we had 3 different players cross the ball from free-kicks, 4 if you include the short one that was worked wide for Fredericks. What was that about?).
