Having written last week that for David Wagner’s team “there is now no such thing as a lost cause”, I am happy to hold my hands up and say that I’m now feeling a bit daft.
To be fair though, I don’t think anyone could have seen a performance as cataclysmically awful as the one at Plymouth coming, but with three league defeats in four games that strong start now seems a lifetime ago.
Last week’s performance was reminiscent of the hammering at Millwall in the early stages of the Daniel Farke era, which proved to be a turning point in an upward direction, but whether this one will have the same effect is very much an open question.
Kenny McLean looked utterly shellshocked in his post-game interview, and while he was brutally honest, that will be of no comfort to the intrepid 1,600 City fans who made the long trek to Devon at considerable expense and were rewarded with a total capitulation.
City weren’t just beaten at Home Park, they were utterly humiliated by a side who were the diametric opposite of them on the day. Plymouth were energetic, clinical and totally focused on their game plan, while the Canaries, were lethargic, sloppy and apparently directionless once they went behind.
At the start of the season, City, as at the start of David Wagner’s tenure, were moving the ball quickly and beating the opposition press with ease, but that wasn’t the case at Plymouth.
In worrying overtones of last season, Argyle set up to pressure City all over the pitch with the result that the Canaries regularly passed themselves into cul de sacs, but what was really concerning was to see the impressive tracking back from midfield when out of possession, which had become a significant feature of their performances, drop off alarmingly, leaving their central defenders vulnerable to the pace of the home team’s highly mobile strikers.
Plymouth seemed to be quicker to everything and, despite having only 31pc of possession, regularly cut City apart on the counter, an area in which the Canaries had previously looked strong.
It would be easy to single out individuals for criticism, but this was a collective collapse and that is a much bigger problem for Wagner.
The question now is whether last Saturday was just one of those bizarre results that the Championship seems to throw up on a regular basis or is it a sign of a deeper malaise?
There is no doubt that the long-term loss of both Josh Sargent and Ashley Barnes is a major blow, but that can’t be used to excuse the poor performances in defence and midfield, and Adam Idah did his own cause no harm with two goals and a decent all-round performance.
While Wagner might well have preferred a full week’s training to work on some of the issues from Saturday, the midweek game at Fulham did at least provide a chance for fringe players to stake a claim for a place today, and for those returning from injury to get some minutes into their legs.
I think most of us looked at the relative strengths of the two starting line-ups and feared the worst, but after giving away a poor goal City produce a strong performance.
There were certainly a number of positives on Wednesday, not least an exciting cameo from the long-awaited Borja Sainz against a very strong home line-up, and that will give Wagner plenty to think about when selecting today’s line up.
While it was clearly too early to get carried away with City’s excellent start, it’s also important not to get too despondent about the current poor run, and today is a perfect opportunity for Wagner and his team to show that their hunger has returned.
Read the full article here
