Premier League new boys Norwich City has played three games so far without a win. They drew 1-1 with both Wigan (away) and Stoke (home) in the league and lost 4-0 to MK Dons (home) in the second round of Carling Cup this Tuesday.

For this scouting report, I will mainly focus on their season opening game against Wigan for three reasons. First, it is a league game, unlike the game against MK Dons. Second, it was an away game which will be the case when they play against Chelsea this weekend. Third, it was a game in which Norwich had all eleven players on the pitch for the entire time (defender Leon Barnett was sent off at 63rd minute in the Stoke game). However, I will draw in statistics and match facts from all three games in this report.

Shifting Lineups

Getting a point at Wigan is by no mean a disappointing result for a newly promoted team but Norwich manager Paul Lambert made six changes to his starting eleven in the home game against Stoke. Holt (F), Crofts (M), Tierney (D), De Laet (D) and Ruddy (GK) were the only players who started both games.

I'm not familiar enough with Norwich's tactics from last season to know if this is something Lambert does regularly or not. It could be that he likes to start different teams for away and home games. In that case, the starting lineup against Wigan may be the one we will see in Stamford Bridge come this Saturday.

Although the personal changes between the Wigan game and the Stoke game, Norwich's formation stayed pretty the same. Against Wigan, it was a 4-4-2 with the central midfielder Hoolahan slightly more forward then his partner Fox, in almost a 4-diamond-2 fashion. Against Stoke, Crofts and Johnson both played as deep lying central midfielders in a classic 4-4-2 formation. I think Lambert will pick the 4-diamond-2 formation which gave Norwich a better hold of the game against Wigan with 51% possession. With the 4-4-2 against Stoke at home, Norwich only saw 47% of the ball.

The "Goal Threat"

Five is the number of shots on target Norwich City was able to collect after making 13 goal attempts against Wigan and 10 against Stoke. So, there is about 21.7% chance that a Norwich player's shot will be within the frame of the goal. Not the most staggering statistics by any stretch of the imagination. Let's see how and where the shots were taken in these two games.

I think very few will disagree when I say, "Stoke has a better defense than Wigan." From that understanding, you can see that Norwich's attack could get into the box to take shots against a weak defense of Wigan; eight out of thirteen shots came from inside the box. Yet, the shots lacked accuracy. Against a stronger defense of Stoke, there were fewer shots from inside the box, only two out of ten.

Against Chelsea's stingy defense, Norwich will again be restricted to taking shots from outside the 18 yard box. Hilario, who is a great shot stopper, should be able to deal with them but the likes of Mikel, Ramires and Lampard will have to make sure that there is very little space before the defensive line to deny the shooting chances.

Tackling In The Midfield

Against Wigan, Norwich did not pressure and tackle until the opposition comes into their half of the field. There were a few odd challenges in the opposition's half, especially by Holt, but they are insignificant compared to the number of tackles they made around the center circle. Of course, a team always makes more tackle in their defensive positions than their attacking positions but you can see the difference in pressing style when you look at Wigan's tackle chart.

As you can see from Chart 3, Wigan make almost as many tackles in their own half as they do in opposition's half. Norwich were happy to let Wigan have the ball in non-threatening position. It means that our defensive midfielder and our defenders will have a lot of time on the ball, even more than they usually do. It is then crucial for these players to pick out the right pass/cross from those deep positions.

What will be the right tactical approach in this kind of situation where the opposition is willing to sit back and defend? Well, don't look at me! Why don't you ask our manager?

"At this time of ultra-low defensive block teams, you will have to learn how to provoke them with the ball. It's the ball they want, so you have to defy them using the ball as a carrot.

... that's something Henk ten Cate also took to Avram Grant's Chelsea. With Ten Cate, play was started with John Terry or Ricardo Carvalho, to invite the opponent's pressure. Then you had one less opponent in the next step of construction." (Source)

As Villas-Boas has suggested, Chelsea may have to use the ball as the bait to draw out the opponents before making an attacking move.

Route One

Against both Stoke and West Brom, Chelsea has mostly used passing from the back as a way to bring the ball forward instead of punting it all the way to the forwards. Understandable approach, since both Stoke and West Brom are good at dealing with long balls. But route one football might be the way to go against Norwich, especially if Chelsea needs to find a winner deep in the second half.

Against Norwich, Wigan goalkeeper Al-Habsi was able to deliver 18 successful long balls to his teammates. Either Al-Habsi is a long ball specialist or Norwich has a problem dealing with long balls. The former is less likely because the Wigan goalkeeper could only muster 7 successful long balls against Swansea.

In recent years, Chelsea has stayed away from route one football and has been playing passing football. However, Norwich's inability to deal with long balls is a weakness that Chelsea can definitely exploit. As we all know, Drogba is a better target for long balls than Torres. So, we could either start with him in the center to knock down crosses and initiate the attack or bring on in the second half to offer a different attacking option. It will depend on how we want to approach the game and how the game unfolds.

Conclusions

Norwich has played and suffered an embarrassing defeat at home during mid-week while Chelsea had the whole week of training. Therefore, even without considering the difference in quality between the teams, Chelsea goes into this match with more confidence and preparedness. Chelsea should be able to dominate the possession once again. Since, Norwich will sit back and soak in the pressure, Chelsea will need to find a way to translate ball possession to goal scoring opportunities. Chelsea's defenders and the defensive midfielder will have to initiate the attack drawing out the opponents and even hit a long ball every once in awhile to exploit Norwich's weakness in defending long balls. Although Norwich's attack is not very prolific in front of the goal, Chelsea should not forget that the Canaries were able to find the back of the net in both of the league games that they have played this season.

* All the charts featured in this post were constructed using Guardian Chalkboard.

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