Outgoing? Oliver Norwood

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Was just about to post his story update too, 6 years has gone very quickly.

He arrived at a time when we needed they added quality, to take us up a level. We were patched together following the loss of Coutts and we needed something special. He definitely offered that. In his role, in that system, when we were flying and the system was fluent, he was utter quality. What a ping.
 
CaptainMorgans said:
No way.

4.5 good. 1.5 bad.

I think people forget how good he was in the first half of last season.
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I remember him as bad pretty much all of last season, soon as we dropped him from Doyle we stopped leaking goals.
 
s20Blade said:
I remember him as bad pretty much all of last season, soon as we dropped him from Doyle we stopped leaking goals.
Click to expand...

Nope.

Last season there was talk of him being the Player of the Year for the whole division halfway in.. that was from various podcasts.

His stats were exceptional in terms of ball recovery, pass completion, chance creation etc.

It slowed down, but this coincided with a lot of injuries to our squad.
Things did go very stale for a few months (Jan - March) and then Doyle and McAtee gave us a huge unexpected lift which pushed us over the line.
 
CaptainMorgans said:
Nope.

Last season there was talk of him being the Player of the Year for the whole division halfway in.. that was from various podcasts.

His stats were exceptional in terms of ball recovery, pass completion, chance creation etc.

It slowed down, but this coincided with a lot of injuries to our squad.
Things did go very stale for a few months (Jan - March) and then Doyle and McAtee gave us a huge unexpected lift which pushed us over the line.
Click to expand...
A lot of fans seem to forget how good he was that season. The stats back it up (yes I know it's not quite in order but you can work it out) :

Screenshot_20240515_154806.jpgScreenshot_20240515_154823.jpgScreenshot_20240515_154839.jpgScreenshot_20240515_154857.jpg
 

Made a proper instant impact, had no right signing him and yet we managed it, I imagine a lot of that came down to CW selling the idea. fair fucks thought he was mint me. Dropped off in his later years but who doesnt. Dont begrudge him taking home the wage his contract stipulates. on the club to move him out.

Will end up at Huddersfield
 
CaptainMorgans said:
Nope.

Last season there was talk of him being the Player of the Year for the whole division halfway in.. that was from various podcasts.

His stats were exceptional in terms of ball recovery, pass completion, chance creation etc.

It slowed down, but this coincided with a lot of injuries to our squad.
Things did go very stale for a few months (Jan - March) and then Doyle and McAtee gave us a huge unexpected lift which pushed us over the line.
Click to expand...
He was our best midfielder by a country mile until about the end of February, no one else even came close and I don't think there was a single Blades fan who would have disputed that at the time.

Hecky then brought Fleck back in for some bizarre reason, the midfield went to shit and our season started to look like it might go the same way. Both got dropped, Doyle, McAtee and Berge upped their game, and Norwood's never really been an automatic pick since.
 
CaptainMorgans said:
He was some player, Norwood. Transformational.

There are very few occasions where I remember seeing someone, on their debut, and thinking "wow, what an upgrade." He just looked such a massive step-up on Lee Evans straight from the off. £2m was an absolute steal.
He was perfect for our system. Probably the best long-passer the Championship has seen, but his work-rate off the ball was also underrated and his attitude was first class. Always liked hearing his no nonsense interviews which were often pretty combative in tone.

Of course there were some limitations to his game which became more apparent in the last 18 months, but - as with Enda Stevens - I'll choose to remember his positive contribution to the best period I remember of being a Blade.
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Yep 100% agree. We all loved Coutts but no doubt that Norwood took us to another level. His defensive stats were excellent back then and he gave us so much control.

Like you say, his attitude was first class. He was the definition of a ‘winner’, at least at this level. We had such a bunch of proper men in that team - Norwood, Bash, Egan, O’Connell, Billy, Baldock. I bet they loved being part of that dressing room.
 
I've been amongst his harshest critics in the past season, but that's only because I've been judging him on his time prior to that, one of the best passers of the ball I've seen at the blades and committment levels above and beyond.

A top blade who will always be up there with the best. Good luck Oliver.
 
It’s weird. Wilders signings are always talk about on here.

But for £1million this one never does.

What a player he has been for us. Will be at the ground early hopefully they walk him out before.
 
Bladezz said:
It’s weird. Wilders signings are always talk about on here.

But for £1million this one never does.

What a player he has been for us. Will be at the ground early hopefully they walk him out before.
Click to expand...
Will be disappointed if he doesn't get brought on in the second half to get the reception he deserves.
 
Absolutely class act in every sense. In many ways I always thought he was our captain on the field, even if someone else had the armband. If we concede enough on Sunday and have enough kick offs, he might finally achieve his dream and catch the keep out with a strike from his own half ( like everything with Oli he never stops trying )
 
I'll be consistent here and say he's not a player I'm going to particularly miss, much like Berge. When Norwood first arrived he was great and half the reason he worked so well was the overloads that we created. Whenever Norwood pinged the ball there was a target and at least two others waiting for the second ball. As a result an unsuccessful pass often worked in our favour. Again this worked in our first season in the Premier League.

As for our relegation season he was massively ineffective as the overlapping centre backs dried up and we no longer created overloads and the midfield three of Fleck, Norwood and Lundstram were painfully piss poor.

In the two seasons after in the Championship Norwood was very much a 50/50 player. When we committed bodies forward he ran the show. As soon as we went ahead and Hecky got negative he dissappeared from the game and we were down to ten men. In other games where teams managed to dominate us then Norwood dissappeared and we were often down to ten men and he didn't do enough off the ball to have any other kind of influence.

My main problem with Norwood was the consistent inconsistency, you had no idea if this game would be one where he ran the show, or another if you asked if he was even on the pitch, much like Berge.

I'll be grateful to Norwood for those two seasons, but not for the three that followed. A good player, but not consistent enough to be considered a legend for me. Personally if you gave me a choice of Paul Coutts at his best or Norwood at his best, I'd take Coutts, as he'd give you that performance week in, week out. No questions.
 
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