The Tigers now have the international break to prepare for their next batch of Championship games
Those who have watched Hull City under Tim Walter will almost certainly confess that Saturday’s 4-0 thrashing at Norwich City will not have come as much of a surprise, nor that it has taken until the ninth league game to arrive.
City were well beaten at Carrow Road, and while they did fashion some chances, most notably when Chris Bedia tickled a header wide in the first half, at the other end, the Canaries created far more and in truth, the scoreline probably flattered the visitors given the hosts missed a penalty, and saw two or three gilt-edged chances passed up.
The trip to Norfolk always felt like a major hurdle, and probably the biggest test of Walter’s regime so far. While a visit to Leeds United came and went without much fanfare and a fairly tame 2-0 defeat, City were also beaten 2-0 at home to Sheffield United.
Both teams, on paper at least, may have appeared to have provided bigger tests than the Canaries, after all, Leeds wiped the floor with them in the play-off semi-final last season, while the Blades were a Premier League team, in name at least, even if their performances over 38 games suggested differently.
But it was Norwich, a team under a vibrant new manager, and unbeaten in 22 games in all competitions at home, who you felt would test City’s recent powers of recovery which saw them win three games on the spin. Of course, you can make those wins fit any narrative you wish, depending on your viewpoint.
Were Stoke City a mess, or were they a difficult nut to crack? Were Cardiff City terrible, or were they a team with a point to prove after seeing their manager sacked, and QPR, well, were they a side struggling at home, or one waiting to click? Ultimately, whatever your viewpoint, City beat the teams put in front of them, and though they did it with some style and class, they were not without concern.
In those three games, the Tigers afforded their opposition 51 shots at their goal. That total rose by a further 19 at Carrow Road taking the tally to an astonishing 70 attempts in just four Championship games. As they did at Loftus Road last midweek, Walter’s side gave big chances to Norwich in the opening minutes because of the way they play – being so open, especially in transition, playing a high line and perhaps, a tad too aggressive in the press.
They were 2-0 down after 20 minutes, having conceded the first four minutes earlier, but in truth, had Nunez and Sainz not fluffed fairly easy chances, City’s resistance may not have lasted the 16 minutes it did. At Loftus Road, QPR could have been four up after six minutes, but for a combination of sloppy finishing and some terrific goalkeeping from Ivor Pandur, who is continually so woefully exposed, it borders on the ridiculous.
Going forward, Walter’s team are beginning to look like a real handful. Ten goals in the three goals prior to Norwich proves that and is a reason to be excited. Liam Millar and Mohamed Belloumi are constant threats down either flank and on Saturday, they created, although the amount of genuinely difficult saves either Angus Gunn in the first half or ex-Tiger George Long made in the second were debatable, and Abu Kamara made a positive impact off the bench.
We can laud the manager for being cavalier, wanting to play exciting football, on the front foot, and all that, and yes, it’s great to see a City team really going for it, but it cannot be at the expense of being tighter, less naive and with some semblance of pragmatism.
You don’t need to be gung-ho all the time, you can operate with a little more defensive structure to ensure that when you’re on the 45th attack of the half, you have some protection, that if you lose the ball midway inside the opponent’s half, you’re not cut open with one forward pass, time and time again, your goalkeeper exposed. There is too much emphasis on Pandur having a blinder to keep City in games, that’s not sustainable.
Against players like Borja Sainz and Josh Sargent, you are going to get punished. They may miss one or two, but they’ll eventually take one, especially if you’re gifting teams 20 shots on your goal every single week.
Many will applaud Walter for trying to be different, in trying to make his way of playing unique. We all want to be entertained, see our team score lots of goals and be successful, but if this City team are to be that under this manager, there has to be an acceptance, an acknowledgement that in the Championship, you have to be difficult to beat. You have to have a platform to go and play the silky, sexy football we all want to see.
Norwich, under Johannes Hoff Thorup, albeit in the infancy of his Carrow Road tenure, seem to have a formula which makes them difficult to break down, tough to beat, but also play some expansive, exciting football with goals at the end of it. Countless teams over the years have proved you can play attacking football and score goals whilst being difficult to break down, and Walter’s side can still be that.
City under Walter remain a work in progress – the new buzzword around the MKM Stadium – and it’s right. We know the recruitment situation and how it played out, and we know that it will take time to gel. It’s quite possible we won’t see things settle down properly until after Christmas, but there can be little doubt that the personnel is largely irrelevant in one sense because it’s the system and how it’s being implemented that needs work if the Tigers are to settle down and become a genuinely competitive Championship side, the one we all want them to be.