Norwich City have been the ultimate rollercoaster team of the Premier League, with four promotions and three relegations since 2010, and with them being last in the standings again, a question must be asked: why does Norwich keeps going up and down nearly every other year and is unable to take the next step to make themselves a regular in the Premier League?
Norwich have struggled mightily this year, being last in the Premier League with only 17 points in 28 games. They are the worst attacking team, with only 17 goals and 23.6 expected goals, and the second worst defensive team, with only Leeds conceding more goals this year.
Most obvious thing is talent. Even last year in the Championship, only three players (Teemu Pukki, Emi Buendia, Todd Cantwell) had over ten goal contributions, with most of them going to the partnership of Pukki and Buendia. They were the main trio for the team in their last stint in the Premier League.
This year that has not been the case. Pukki is still doing his thing, scoring 8 goals so far, but he’s been alone. Buendia was sold for club record £33 million to Aston Villa last summer, and Cantwell struggled so much this year after falling out with previous manager Daniel Farke, that the new boss Dean Smith loaned him to Bournemouth. Kosovan winger Milot Rashica, who was signed to replace Buendia, leads the teams in assists this year by having two. Yes, your read that right. Two assists is their leading man.
With the big Buendia sell and big TV money coming in after the promotion, one could ask, why hasn’t Norwich spent more money to improve a team when it’s clearly not good enough for the Premier League. They signed only five players on permanent deals last summer, and none of them have hit the ground running. It seems like they were being sneaky and try to find cheap deals, but it has backfired.
Those signings show absolutley no ambition by the Norwich ownership, and personally I don’t think the appointment of Dean Smith as manager does either. He is an okay manager, but no miraclemaker, who could lift a team clearly worst by talent to better fortunes.
The lack of ambition shown all around the club makes it seem like they are happy to keep going up and down. They won’t be keeping the spot, unless they get serious about staying up.
