Talking Tactics | Swansea City vs Norwich City
After picking up all three points in London against Millwall at the weekend, Swansea City return to the Swansea.com Stadium on Wednesday night (7.45pm) to take on Norwich City.
Ahead of the action, WhoScored.com preview the clash, taking a look at what to expect from Norwich, the key battle and a key stat.
WHAT TO EXPECT FROM NORWICH
David Wagner’s side currently find themselves in the play-off places with five wins from their opening nine Championship fixtures in the 2023-24 campaign.
The Canaries started the season off strongly, going unbeaten in their opening four fixtures including wins over Hull City, Millwall and Huddersfield Town on top of a 4-4 draw against Southampton back in August.
Since then they have lost three of their most recent five, including a 6-2 defeat away at Plymouth Argyle. However, the Canaries did bounce back with a 2-0 win over Birmingham City last time out.
Wagner has promised rotation to the starting XI with the fixtures coming thick and fast, but you can expect the set-up to remain the same with 4-2-3-1 the go-to formation for the Canaries.
KEY BATTLE
The WhoScored.com match forecast suggests it is very likely that Norwich will stray offside often, and that shouldn't come as a surprise. The Canaries rank joint-third for the most offsides per game, misjudging the line 2.4 times per game on average whilst Swansea rank 15th with an average of 1.7 per game.
This is likely down to Wagner’s approach play with Gabriel Sara playing the ball through to the front four. Sara boasts the most accurate long balls (43) of any Norwich player and will be one to watch tonight.
Sara is currently the highest-rated player in the league according to WhoScored.com, with a 7.80 rating from the first nine league games. The Brazilian has scored two goals and has three assists so far, but most impressively he’s made the most key passes (35) of any player in the league.
Swansea’s Josh Key is likely to be the man tasked with keeping Sara quiet on this occasion. The 23-year-old is the hosts' top tackler, with 26 successful tackles, averaging 2.9 per game so far, and will need to be at the top of his game here.
KEY STAT
Only Ipswich Town (21) have scored more goals than tonight’s visitors (19) so far in the Championship this season.
Jonathan Rowe (5) and Adam Idah (4) are the leading scorers for the Canaries, with the former contributing five goals (4 goals and an assist) in his first five games in all competitions this season.
Swansea will have their work cut out to keep the Norwich attack quiet this evening, but they had no problem doing so when these sides last met, with the Swans recording a 3-0 victory Carrow Road.