Promoted Teams Analysis: Norwich
Looking at Norwich as Fantasy Prospects for the New Season
Norwich City’s promotion to the Premier League almost felt destined to happen as the later weeks of the Championship season came by. The Canaries only lost six fixtures last season and won the most games with 27 victories in the second-tier. They will be a welcome addition to the Premier League next season, and there will be anticipation to see some of their star performers and how they can transition to life in the top flight.
Many will be aware of the qualities that the Canaries have but will also be well aware that they will naturally also be among the favourites to be relegated. However, there is no doubting that they are a proven Championship team, and it will be fascinating to see how they adjust to the Premier League. Their scoring record was impressive, as they netted 93 goals in the Championship last season. However, there will be question marks defensively as they conceded 57 goals last season; which was the worst of all the top three teams in the division. This youthful side will continue to improve, but it will be interesting to see whether they can continue to excel in the face of fierce competition when the stakes are the highest.
How Norwich will likely line up
Daniel Farke has proven to be an inspired managerial appointment by the club, and after overcoming a difficult start to the season, he settled on a 4-2-3-1 formation. The two holding midfielders offered insurance to let their flair players express themselves without worrying too much about their defensive duties. While the back four ahead of Premier League veteran Tim Krul will certainly excite Norwich fans as they are only getting better the more they play. Right-back Max Aarons and central defender Ben Godfrey have been revelations since joining the club and could be potential stars of the season. Club captain Christoph Zimmermann partners Godfrey in the defence and their partnership will be crucial.
The forward areas are where the club excelled last season, and the relationship between Marco Stiepermann behind Teemu Pukki flourished last season. Meanwhile, left-winger Onel Hernandez will be looking for another productive season in terms of assists. New signing Patrick Roberts could take up the right-winger position after Farke consistently rotated players in that area throughout the season.
Difficult Start…
Fantasy players would be quick to notice the difficulty level of the opening five games for the Canaries. In the opening weeks of the season they travel to Liverpool and West Ham United, and also welcome Newcastle United, Chelsea and Manchester City to Carrow Road. According to Compare Your Odds, Norwich are 18/1 to beat Liverpool at Anfield, and this shows how unlikely it is that they will get a positive result against the European champions. That is the highest price for any team on the opening weekend of the season, and as Liverpool look to better their second-place finish last term you wouldn’t expect them to get the win.
The same can be said of their fixtures against Chelsea and Manchester City; with the current champions only having lost once in 2019. However, the Canaries will already be looking forward to their first home game against Newcastle, and this could present them with an excellent chance to get their first win of the season.
Norwich Players To Look At;
Marco Stiepermann – 5.5m
(Photo by Shaun Brooks/Action Plus via Getty Images)
His importance was clear for all to see as the club drew the three games in which he didn’t play, while they lost to Leeds United and West Bromwich Albion when he started on the bench. He could be a shrewd choice for a fantasy player as he is only valued at £5.5 million and consistently provides chances for Pukki. Also, he is a guaranteed starter in the Canaries line-up due to his work rate for the team and the club have made no new signings in the number ten position. Yet.
Max Aarons – 4.5m
(Photo by Chloe Knott – Danehouse/Getty Images)
If he can seamlessly adjust to life in the Premier League, then there is no reason why he won’t excel and become comparable to last season’s Matt Doherty. Every season there is a 4.5m diamond in the rough, and Max Aarons could certainly be that man. He has all the tools that are needed to be a first-class full-back in the modern game as he is as comfortable attacking as he is in defensive areas. This is shown by the fact that he has had 24 shots on goal in the Championship last season, while he also created 31 chances for teammates. His ability to get up and down and adding width to the Canaries side will be crucial in how they attack against opposing sides in the Premier League. His aerial ability also isn’t bad as he win an average of 0.6 duels in the air per match. As a young player this quality is undoubtedly going to improve in the Premier League.
Teemu Pukki – 6.5m
(Photo by James Baylis – AMA/Getty Images)
Whether he will match his goal-scoring from last season remains in doubt, but 7.3% of players have taken a chance on him exceeding all expectations once again. At a price of £6.5 million he could a bit of a gamble considering there are other more proven strikers around the 6.5m mark such as Josh King (6.5m), or Diogo Jota (6.5m). There’s no doubt he has the capability to become a good fantasy pick, but at his price range, it’s probably best to assess Norwich and his performances in the first few game weeks. He’s currently 100/1 to finish the season as the top goalscorer, and if Norwich are to stay up Pukki will need to be the man putting the ball in the back of the net.
Thanks for reading Promoted Teams Analysis – Norwich. This article was written by James Hirlehey
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Are Leicester really going to pay £45m for Lewis Dunk? I appreciate it’s just gossip at this stage but it seems like an outrageous amount of money to me!!
English premium and BHA know they’ve got the funds if they sell Maguire. If they’d already bought him in before the Maguire deal then I imagine he’d have been less?
Both valid points which I hadn’t considered.
Still seems a daft amounth of money. Hopefully Maguire does well for us as VVD did for you…just imagine media glare will be on him all season though. Should make life easier for AWB to settle in though!
These rumours have been going along the South coast for a while.
https://fantasyfootball247.co.uk/fantasy-football-interview-a-league-winner-on-a-mission/comment-page-3/#comment-562532
I would be tempted with Dunk 4.5m and/or Clarke at 4.5m too.
Considering they’ll sell Maguire for >£60M, I think they have the resources to pull it off. And Lewis dunk is pretty decent too
But he’s not worth £45m
He’s worth 4.5m.
The fee for Dunk, if it’s true, is utterly ludicrous. Conspiracy theorists would suggest it’s a weirdo set-up to force Man U to cough up even more for Maguire.
Here is my team.. good, bad or worse?
It looks for the most part decent. I’m kind of reluctant to give out too much advice at this early stage as there are still many moves that will happen not to mention pre-season so the chances of you actually going with that team come 3 weeks time are slim! That said, I’d say the main things that stick out are Erkisen as he seems to be done with Spurs and the value of 3 £6.5 forwards when you consider the options in defence and midfield for that price (VVD, Laporte, Perez etc). Think this season more than ever there is more merit in playing a different formation to the tried and tested 343. But yeah, other than that looks decent enough!
Hi, your team looks decent but not as balanced as I’d hope it to be. Think very many people are sleeping on premium forwards this season. Harry Kane is a real bargain at 11.0(don’t tell me about the August curse). Really think if premium forwards start the seasons on form, managers like you will find it hard to fit him in and might be promoted to use your wildcard to catch up. Apart from the premium forward your team looks really decent and I like the deulofeu pick
Not so much sleeping as choosing between a premium striker and Sterling (it seems to me).
Zzzzzzzzzzzz.
Very nice article. Has to be said though I’m not a fan of these promoted teams assets early into that season. I prefer the sit back, watchlist them until they prove worthy which is much safer but could be risky.
Agree entirely. It didn’t work out last season as Wolves were wonderful but none of the promoted sides this year are even obliging us with 4m fodder players (yet).
They could at least do that (the bounders).
Evening all haven’t been here for a while what is everyone opinions on var this season got to be worth having some penalty takers in your team
I reckon it’ll balance mate, you think all dives (hopefully) will be picked up
Evidence from the other leagues seems to suggest that there won’t be a fat lot of difference over the piece with some being cancelled as well as others being given.
Judging by VAR stats I have seen, I don’t think it will make much of a difference, the new handball rules could cause an uptick, but someone came out saying that they wouldn’t be using VAR to nitpick every little call, so guessing possibly a few more early on and then it levels off.
They may rethink that yet after it was pointed out that we’d have our players playing to ‘their’ interpretation of VAR but when they went off to play in either Internationals or European competitions it’d then be to a different take, aka the one everyone else is using.
It was Mike Riley, head of refs. And he’s quite an arrogant character so it may be that we do go that way.
Hope it does go that way, VAR really sucked in the Copa America, it was driving me nuts.
Take a gander here
Penalty takers are always handy.
Here is a list of set piece takers for the site, it is not under the link yet as our IT guy does it and he gets to stuff about once a month.
If anyone has any objections (hopefully no Maddison deniers like last season), let me know, I will check it out and if it needs changing it will be done.
No objections, just strong approval.
Siggy in all three columns warms my heart.
Milovojevic and Neves took almost every single direct free kick for both teams, I believe Neves took all but one and Mili took all.
Thought about doing percentage of kicks taken for the highest taker in each category of every team, I might do that at some point this week so we know what share the first one on the list takes for each team in all 3 categories.
That’d be good / worthy if you get the time. Thanks for putting it all together again, it’s a massive help. Almost as invaluable as the weather updates for the WCC. Although hopefully a bit more accurate / honest
That would be interesting. I’d probably start making it up if tasked to do that, though I sense it’s a community-spirited act of charity.
Cheers for the info re Milo / Neves.
I think the Maddison issue died a death.
RMT! I’ve never started with 5-3-2. But looks like this is what I’ve liked so far in terms of personnel.
Hope long you planning to stick with those two up front?
Quite like it actually! I’m considering the same front line as it gives you options to move to various price points quite easily