Paddy Davitt delivers his Swansea City verdict after Norwich City’s 1-0 Championship defeat.
- Reality check
After the genuine uplift from that first Championship win under Johannes Hoff Thorup at Coventry City prior to the international pause, a sobering reminder this ‘project’ is still firmly under construction.
Until Borja Sainz moved centre stage from the 84th minute with a flurry of openings, Norwich were unable to carry any residual attacking threat in a slack second half showing. All the more surprising given they carved out the best openings on the counter prior to the interval.
Thorup suggested he felt there was more control in that second period from his side, but they were unable to get back on level terms, following a painful early concession.
Amankwah Forson turned the ball past Angus Gunn four minutes in, but it was a weak goal sourced in a breakdown in communication between Kenny McLean and Jack Stacey deep in Norwich’s own right back area.
Swansea were aggressive in their press and full of energy and endeavour, but Norwich were off it. Collectively and individually. That fortnight’s pause clearly did not have the desired effect.
The tone was set prior to kick-off with news of a training injury to recent signing Anis Ben Slimane. But Thorup’s task, along with that of his players, is to problem solve. They were found wanting on this cross-border trip.
- False start
From frontline service to a spell on the sidelines. Such are the fates that conspired for Slimane to tease Norwich City fans with an impressively-assured second half debut in the Championship win at Coventry City, to that pre-match Swansea bulletin of a hamstring-related injury.
Slimane appeared to establish an instant connection with McLean and Marcelino Nunez in the West Midlands, as Norwich’s central midfield trio exuded control, composure and poise.
So much so Thorup was effusive in his praise for the Sheffield United deadline day loan signing ahead of this trip to Wales. Although there was a perhaps a subtle sub-text in his words, in light of Slimane’s injury absence, at the Liberty stadium.
“For us, he needs to be a player that can play 35 games, 40 games in a season. And so far in his career, he hasn’t done it,” said Thorup. “So of course, we have to prepare him for that. We have to develop him for that, because that is what is needed with a player like him in his position in the team.
“I spoke to him (on Thursday), because there’s some areas of his physicality and his game where we can improve it. His debut was a good step, and it was a good performance. But again, good things take time.”
Thorup’s thrust was clear. Slimane has been identified as a focal point for his brand of Championship combat. Once the Danish-bred Tunisian international became an option in the closing weeks of the transfer window, the trail that led to Real Madrid and Reinier ended.
But Thorup is also challenging the 23-year-old to work on the physical elements that come from putting your body through the mill in a 46-game league.
To have started only five times last season for the Blades in the top flight, serves as a pertinent reminder Slimane was going to require a period to adapt in green and yellow.
Thorup allayed pre-match concerns he could be absent for weeks. Further assessment will take place over the coming days, but at this stage the Dane was not willing to rule him out of next week’s Championship game at Derby.
His value will only grow on the evidence of a laboured midfield offering from those fit for duty in Wales.
- Forson frustrations
Without second guessing Thorup’s team selection process, most might have expected Slimane to start at the expense of Forson, after his eyecatching Coventry debut. The 21-year-old midfielder, along with Ante Crnac, were hooked at the Sky Blues during the interval, with Thorup candidly confirming afterwards they were not delivering.
But with Slimane sidelined, Thorup turned back towards Forson. A player looking to make a positive impression instead diverted Eom’s cutback past Gunn inside the opening five minutes, following a sloppy passage of play from his team mates.
As the camera panned towards Forson, you could see the shake of the head as he trooped back towards his mark for the restart.
Whether that disappointment proved too much to overcome, much of his shift thereafter was careless and imprecise. When he found himself in decent areas of the pitch, the final decision was wrong, or the execution poor.
There was a pinpoint free kick Josh Sargent glanced wide to underscore his undoubted technical quality. Plus a run into the area to meet Nunez’s lofted pass that saw Lawrence Vigouroux contort his body in mid-air to claw away Forson’s header.
But they were fleeting moments. Swansea snapped and snarled around him in central midfield to hassle a player still adapting to the intensity of the Championship.
At the start of the second half he emerged from the tunnel with a comforting arm and a pat from assistant head coach Glen Riddersholm. There was a lovely flick around the corner on the hour mark for Ben Chrisene, but he departed ahead of the final quarter along with the full-back. This was not the statement he wanted in Slimane’s injury absence.
- Midfield mix
By no manner of means should the focus settle on Forson. Right across midfield, Norwich were alarmingly sluggish and lacking in any real creativity, after a flurry of first half turnover opportunities.
Thorup went to a back three for the final 10 minutes once Forson, Oscar Schwartau and Nunez had all been substituted at various stages of that second half.
Schwartau got the nod to start in place of big-money summer signing Ante Crnac, but the young Dane’s first touch in close quarters action was too often tardy for this level. While on the opposite flank, there was none of the incisiveness or instinctiveness to Sainz’s forward play.
Only in the closing stages, as Norwich tried to raise the tempo, did they exhibit any degree of urgency. Sainz himself saw a snapshot blocked, before Sargent’s follow up was smothered.
Then the Spaniard wanted too long to finish as Ben Cabango made a last-ditch block, before the winger was crowded out by back-tracking defenders with Vigouroux to beat, and finally carved Onel Hernandez’s cutback over deep in stoppage time.
The reaction of some of his team mates on the pitch said it all when that last golden chance cleared the bar.
Thorup spoke afterwards about that blunt edge in the attacking third. But given how imperative midfield is to the head coach’s exciting brand of football, the Dane will know he needs to extract far more than was on show against an energetic Swansea, who under Luke Williams’ urgings, never gave Norwich any peace.
But they will face that most weeks in the Championship, as well-prepared opponents try and nullify the core tenets of Thorup’s possession strategy.
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