pommpey
THE FUTURE ... AS IT USED TO BE
- Banned
- #31
I'm not sure what point you're making here.
This was Duffy's heatmap the season we went up:
View attachment 134817
And this is Norwood's for this season:
View attachment 134819
Compeletely different roles and positions. Norwood could play in Duffy's role; but that's like saying that Egan could play upfront. It doesn't make sense when it doesn't play into any of his strengths.
"He does nothing of the sort when compared with the cool control and advancing of Basham, the threat that MGW causes and the battling that Billy Sharp does."
Norwood plays a lot deeper than both Gibbs-White and Sharp, and his central position doesn't allow for the runs that Basham goes on- none of those three are comparable players.
So I guess the conclusion that we've got here is that attacking players are more attacking than he is. No shit; he's a defensive midfielder. Even if he were physically capable of going on runs it would leave our defence woefully exposed.
The more direct comparison you could make is with Fleck:
View attachment 134820
Norwood clearly has more of the ball, covers a much larger area of the pitch- and plays a much deeper role. If we want to dive into specific stats he's also among the best in the league for the stats that directly relate to the holding role that he plays.
Yes, he is not a goalscorer; but he outperforms a lot of players who play in a similar role to him- including £25m Jefferson Lerma (who has also scored 1 goal and got 3 assists- but has created half the amount of total chances). It's been really interesting seeing how well the stats back up Norwood in comparison to similar players at other clubs, (as opposed to arbitrary comparisons to strikers and attacking midfielders)- particularly as I didn't and don't think he's been particularly outstanding this season.
"Norwood could do Duffy's role. Instead he's more comfortable spraying airborne missiles out wide into an area where oppositions just kill us off."
Norwood can definitely have frustrating games, and he can be ineffective at times; but you can't saddle him with blame for when other players underperform. If he puts in a decent corner and Egan heads it wide; or if a long ball to Baldock get's ineffectively passed around until it comes to nothing then the blame is not with Norwood- it's whoever has made the mistakes later on.
I imagine you'd expect Norwood to put in a corner and then sprint at breakneck speed into the box to score an overhead volley from his own corner kick; and even then he'd not be doing enough.
The point is that as the heatmap suggests, he sits too deep reliant upon his one-note song in that he whumps it long and wide to an area where it is clearly going to get shut down and killed off. What Norwood doesn't do is move through the midfield either stealing yards of the opposition or playing clever one twos and moving up the pitch in a central role. Nope. He gets it off the back three and immediately he's ratcheting his foot back and the opposition are moving across there to catch the wingback.
So predictable.
And I'd rather have Lerma there to be honest because he does have more in his bag than a crowd pleasing thump across the pitch.
My point comparing him to Basham, MGW and Sharp was that when they don't play, the onfield performance suffers massively
pommpey