A fun and free-scoring start tot he season has given way to a crash down the league table for Norwich City, with even last week's win at Cardiff unable to distract from seemingly inevitable change to come under new sporting director Ben Knapper - Jon Punt from Along Came Nodge gave us his thoughts.

How would you assess Norwich’s season so far? Not unexpected, given what you said in the season preview…

The start was really unexpected, and the optimists among City fans would point to the fact the injuries to Josh Sargent and Ashley Barnes derailed things just as we were getting going. The answer is more nuanced though. That strike duo really led from the front and helped us deploy a fairly effective high press, but once they were gone the substance has been really lacking and we have looked like a very poorly coached side. Luckily for you, I don’t think either are near starting on Saturday, so I’d expect us to be enigmatic at best.

Norwich so far this season
Norwich 2-1 Hull Rowe 45, Idah 90 – Delap 17
Southampton 4-4 Norwich Bednarek 17, Armstrong pen 21, pen 90, Adams 57 – Sargent 7, Sara 23, Rowe 45, Fassnacht 84
Norwich 3-1 Millwall Rowe 25, Sargent 49, Barnes 56 – Emakhu 90
Huddersfield 0-4 Norwich Sargent 11, Barnes pen 17, Rowe 49, Idah 84
Rotherham 2-1 Norwich Lembikisa 22, Hugill 40 – Fassnacht 50
Norwich 1-0 Stoke Stacey 44
Norwich 0-2 Leicester Iheanacho pen 45, McAteer 87
Plymouth 6-2 Norwich Whittaker 15, 45, 59, Scarr 35, Azaz 45, Cundle 90 – Idah 72, pen 78
Norwich 2-0 Birmingham Sara 55, Rowe 60
Swansea 2-1 Norwich Lowe 3, Humphreys 83 – Sara 22
Coventry 1-1 Norwich Gibson og 88 – Rowe 40
Norwich 2-3 Leeds Duffy 4, Sara 43 – Suffy og 63, Summerville 77, 85
Norwich 1-2 Boro Rowe 90 – Greenwood 46, Silvera 90
Sunderland 3-1 Norwich Hume 37, Neill 45, Clarke pen 80 – Ui-Jo 23
Norwich 1-3 Blackburn Sara 90 – Dolan 8, Szmodics 15, 49
Cardiff 2-3 Norwich Bowler 39, Robinson 43 – Fassnacht 22, Wintle og 82, Idah 84

Given that season preview, I was quite surprised to see Norwich fly out of the traps with some early wins and lots of goals – what was that down to, and why has it gone south from there?

During those first few games it seemed like nothing could go wrong, and most of the results were genuinely merited. Injuries aside though, opposition coaches have often worked out that we struggle to play out of a decent high press and tactically we’re very inflexible. I hypothesised when he came in that Wagner was a busted flush and I don’t really see much evidence to suggest otherwise. His win ratio is appalling and a couple of decent runs aside, we can often look like a shambles. It’s a really nice time to play us.

We both like a debacle against Blackburn, and having sat through yours I’m amazed David Wagner is still in post. Is he a dead man walking? Is it really his fault?

Quick answer is yes – how often do you see a coach survive the appointment of a new sporting director beyond a few months. It feels like the club should have made the decision prior to his arrival though, really given him a clean slate.

Is all hope riding on Arsenal’s Ben Knapper coming in as the new sporting director and turning this around after the departure of the much maligned Stuart Webber? What do you make of that appointment, what problems does he inherit, what does he need to change?

Ahhhhh, Stuart Webber. Well, where to start? Webber has undoubtedly left the facilities in a much better position than when he arrived and delivered two Championship titles. No-one can ever doubt he was one of the hottest properties in the game three years ago. Then he seemed to become jaded, picked public spats with supporters and diverted from what seemed to be his core beliefs. Not exactly the World Class Basics some of his mates might have expected.

And so he leaves Norwich with an ageing squad, lots of debt and many fans more disengaged with the club than they have been for years. Knapper has to communicate his philosophy pretty quickly and get creative in the transfer market. On the face of it he’s a very Norwich style appointment and I really hope he can bring in some of the fundamentals he’ll have learned at Arsenal.

Any talk of January activity? Your summer signings looked pretty stodgy to me, how have they started?

Barnes started like a steam train then got injured, Duffy started like a steam train then got rubbish. Probably the most exciting signing of the summer, Borja Sainz, tweaked his ligaments in pre-season and has barely been seen since. As you say, it was hardly a stellar summer.

Ins >>> Christian Fassnacht, 29, RM, Young Boys, £2.5m >>> Kellen Fisher, 19, RVB, Bromley, £100k >>> Danny Batth, 32, CB, Undisclosed, Sunderland >>> Borja Sainz, 22, LW, Giresunspor, Free >>> Shane Duffy, 31, CB, Brighton, Free >>> George Long, 29, GK, Millwall, Free >>> Adam Forshaw, 31, AM, Leeds, Free >>> Jack Stacey, 27, RB, Bournemouth, Free >>> Ashley Barnes, 33, CF, Burnley, Free >>> Ui-Jo Hwang, 31, CF, Forest, Loan

Outs >>> Andrew Omobamidele, 21, CB, Forest, £10m >>> Max Aarons, 23, RB, Bournemouth, £8m >>> Milot Rashika, 27, RW, Besiktas, £4.5m >>> Bali Mumba, 21, RB, Plymouth, £1m >>> Tim Krul, 35, GK, Luton, Undisclosed >>> Kieran Dowell, 25, AM, Rangers, Free >>> Teemu Pukki, 33, CF, Minnesota, Free >>> Daniel Sinani, 26, RW, St Pauli, Free >>> Michael McGovern, 39, GK, Hearts, Free >>> Abu Kamara, 19, CF, Portsmouth, Loan >>> Sam Byram, 29, RB, Leeds, Free >>> Josh Martin, 21, LW, Released >>> Christos Tzolis, 21, LW, Dusseldorf, Loan >>> Jon McCracken, 21, GK, Accrington, Loan >>> Jonathan Tomkinson, 21, CB, Bradford, Loan >>> Aby Kamara, 19, CF, Pompey, Loan

Strong points and weak links in the team?

Gabby Sara and Jon Rowe are a delight to watch going forward, beyond that defensive fragility with lots of individual errors is the order of the day.

Given your season preview for us was essentially spot on are you feeling in the mood to revise expectations up or down given what you’ve seen so far?

Anything could happen, but it’s all pretty much dependant on the strikers coming back and hitting the ground running. Anywhere between 6th and 22nd is possible, I’ll plump for 14th.

How do Norwich start moving forwards again from here?

The honest answer is I have very little idea and I’m not sure it’s going to be that fun finding out. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

Links >>> Norwich Official Website >>> The Pink ‘Un — Local Press and Forum >>> Eastern Daily Press — Local Press >>> My Football Writer - Norwich City >>> Along Come Norwich - Blog

The Twitter @puntino, @AlongCameNodge, @loftforwords

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TacticalR added 22:57 - Nov 23 Thanks to Jon. It sounds like there are some significant unknowns at Norwich at the moment. In theory it's in our interest that Wagner is still around, although it never seems to work out like that. In the past Norwich negotiated yoyoing between the Championship and the Premier League pretty successfully, but maybe it's not so easy to do it forever (as West Brom and Watford have found out).

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