Chelsea talking tactics: Norwich were the canary in the coal mine (again)

Almost like clockwork, Norwich was the canary in the coal mine or relegation once again. What tactics can Chelsea expect from a team already gone?

The nature of promotion means there are two routes to the Premier League: direct and the playoffs. The teams that blaze their way into the league directly tend to have a more “positive” style of play whereas the playoff team may be more conservative in their approach.

On that note, there are also generally two types of teams that get relegated straight back to the Championship: the moral “victors” and the ghosts. The former spends the season trying to play as they did in the Championship. It looks good, but it does not work against superior opponents. The ghosts are the team that put up little to no fight at all and are only remembered when they are relegated. Somehow, Norwich is kind of both at the same time in their latest relegation.

Norwich under Daniel Farke have overachieved, not only in the Premier League but in the Championship as well. They tried the whole gegenpress lite that many former Dortmund youth coaches have tried in England and the result was largely the same. So what can Chelsea expect from a side that went down without a whimper but stuck to their guns while doing so?

Norwich mainly use the 4-2-3-1 common with sides that try to do what they do. They will use a 4-1-4-1 occasionally against bigger opponents, so that is likely what Chelsea can expect.

Norwich tries to press throughout the defensive phase. They usually fall into some sort of 4-4-2 but because the pressing is near constant, especially on the wings, it rarely stays that way for long. If it works, it works very well. When it does not, as it surely was going to struggle to do so in the Premier League, Norwich is left wide open for exploitation.

Their attack is just as fluid and hard to pin down, but it is at least more systematic. The players are usually smart enough to know when they can play it long into space and when they need to play it around a bit to find an opening first. For a team as poor as they are, they actually know how to control their own tempo quite well.

So what does all this mean for Chelsea? Basically, the Blues simply cannot be dumb. Not being dumb wins 90 percent of the game against Norwich. They will want to exploit space, but they do not have the players to do so well without the opponent’s help. They will want to press aggressively, which works if the opponent is lackadaisical in their ball control.

That being said, if there was any top six opponent Norwich would want to play with nothing to lose, it would probably be Chelsea right now. The Blues have their moments, but Sheffield showed how far there is to go. Norwich will want to exploit that so they can at least go down with a big team scalp. The Blues will need to do all they can to avoid that embarrassment.