Number two of the Championship table Norwich City entertained play-offs hopeful Derby County. In the pre-match reports, one was looking forward to this match and it did not disappoint in the end. Two late goals from Derby meant that they got the three points in a 3-4 victory at Carrow Road.
In this tactical analysis, we will look at how Derby won this game after trailing Norwich 3-2 in the last minutes of the game. Ultimately their clinical finishes saw they get three points and ousting their defensive errors.
Teams
Norwich’s manager Daniel Farke has got a great season so far and his attacking midfielder Stiepermann and striker Pukki did an excellent job up front against a vivid Derby side. Frank Lampard’s side was strong in attack, but sometimes a bit shaky in defence. Their diverse style of attacking football made sure that they prevailed in the end.
Formation
Norwich played with a 4-2-3-1 formation with a back four of Godfrey-Klose-Zimmermann-Aarons. The defensive line was supported by a low block of Tettey-Vrancic which made the defence quite solid in open play. The attacking midfielders were Hernandez-Stiepermann-Cantwell with Pukki acting as the sole striker in this formation. This changed to 3-4-1-2 after the 3-4 was scored by Marriot, trying to force the equaliser but they were unsuccessful.
On paper, Derby played a 4-3-3 formation, but in reality, they played more closely to a 4-1-4-1 formation. Evans playing in front of the defence and Marriot playing a striker in front of Jozefzoon-Mount-Wilson-Waghorn. This also changed in the 83rd minute after Pukki had given Norwich the 3-2 lead and Derby started pressing more with a 3-5-2 formation with Marriot upfront with Nugent. This proved to be a good call from Frank Lampard because Jozefzoon and Marriot made sure the three points went to Derby County.
Defensive woes
In the first half, it was very clear who was dominating this game. Norwich played attacking football and played a high-intensity press which lead to Derby to make errors defensively. These errors made it unlike that the visitors would win at Carrow Road.
Derby had started quite enthusiastic, but the energy the home team put into the match was higher and this lead to direct counterattacks. The 2-0 is an example of how the Derby defence did not know how to react to that.
On the pitch, it was Norwich that controlled the first half an hour and it was thought that Norwich would win this game quite easily.
Pressing intensity
Norwich City had a higher press intensity, but the guest started out with a high press intensity as well in the first few minutes, trying to force an error.
Going forward, the Rams needed to be more bold and direct after the 2-0. In order to do so, they needed to have a higher press intensity. Their press intensity was very low at the point that they conceded two goals and scored the 1-2, but it really went up in the last 15 minutes of the first half.
You can see that the pressing intensity of Derby County went up and lead to the 2-2. Later on after the 3-2 was conceded, the pressing intensity got better again after it had dropped prior to the 3-2.
Derby was not satisfied with the prospect of a draw. The higher pressing intensity resulted in the 3-4 win. It was not higher than the pressing intensity of Norwich in any phase of the game, but they were clinical in their finishing in contrast to Norwich city in the last ten minutes of the game.
Expected goals
The expected goals (xG) can tell us a lot about the quality of the chances the teams got and the probability that a team might score. The expected goals calculated by Wyscout for Norwich City in this game was 3,22 and that of Derby County was 2,42. This tells us that Norwich City has scored an equal amount of goals that was expected when you look at the chances they got, but that Derby County has proved more clinical than the given chances might suggest.
Final thoughts
Derby had a good last ten minutes in the game, but the win was the consequence of clinical finishing and making the most of every chance they got. In defence, they were quite poor in the first half. Ultimately, the two goals from corners and the prolific last minutes saw them victorious against a high flying Norwich City.
