Paddy Davitt verdict: It has not worked. Again

Neal Maupay’s first half spot kick cleared Tim Krul’s bar and nestled in the midst of those 1,850 fans, who gave their time and money yet again in hope rather than expectation.

When Dean Smith is challenging his players to prove how much it means to pull on the shirt before the game, and rues the chronic lack of confidence after it, you know the game is up.

Whatever the league table does or does not say. However many points are left to play for. However many previous ‘great escapes’ in the Premier League you wish to cling to.

It has not worked. Again. A change of coach in November has not had the desired effect. That is not to re-write history and suggest Daniel Farke should have remained in post.

Things were looking no better under the double title-winning German, and Smith has still extracted marginally more from the same resource. As Brighton rival, Graham Potter, wrote in his programme notes, Norwich is now in good hands with the experienced Smith.

But look at the damning statistics. This group of players may be honest and hard working but they are deficient. They lack the quality and perhaps the enduring belief they are truly Premier League grade.

Between August 28 and November 5 they failed to win in the Premier League, and they lost seven games. Between November 27 and January 14 they failed to win in the Premier League, and they lost six games.

Between February 9, and the latest shot shy offering on the south-coast, they have failed to win in the Premier League, and they have lost six top flight games.

To repeat that regressive pattern over and over tells you it is much more than just a focus on whether Billy Gilmour or Mathias Normann could fill that Olly Skipp shaped hole. We all know the answer. Stuart Webber knows the answer. Smith knows the answer.

The City boss has the air of a coach at present who realises it will take another recruitment cycle and a less exacting season in the Championship to put this right.

Increasingly he must be aware the focus now shifts to his methods. Yet he was right to assert what could he really achieve post-Leeds, with the majority of his squad scattered far and wide on international duty, and another wave of debilitating injuries?

Milot Rashica skies Norwich City's best chance in a 0-0 Premier League draw at Brighton (Image: Focus Images Limited)

But the point stands. What does a Norwich team look like under Smith’s guidance? What are they trying to do with the ball? How do they progress it up the pitch, and how do they end Teemu Pukki’s palpable frustration at the woeful lack of service or support?

Brittle confidence and a losing culture hang heavy over this group but against Brentford, Leeds and Brighton it is difficult to decipher what City are endeavouring to do.

That is not a mournful refrain to return to the levels of possession Farke’s Norwich routinely enjoyed; albeit more so at Championship level than the top tier. Never forget that wretched home defeat to Leeds, that effectively sealed his fate, when Norwich’s tactic of choice was launching long balls onto the head of Josh Sargent.

Smith’s Norwich had 68pc against Newcastle and ended up with the same result as they achieved at home to Crystal Palace with 29pc. They had 48pc at Leeds, and succumbed in stoppage time, but ground out a point at Brighton with 37pc. It is the quality not the quantity that matters.

To watch Gilmour or Normann or Pierre Lees-Melou try and work the ball through the Seagulls’ press was painful at times. It was ponderous, laboured and lacking in any penetrative potential.

Those midfielders may rightfully demand better options ahead of them, or in wider areas, but to give up the initiative in a key facet seemingly every week in the Premier League leaves Norwich’s backline vulnerable, and their attacking players isolated.

Worse, without the ball the collective pressing and hunting across the middle - compared to Smith’s opening salvos - is night and day. Was that really the product of a squad desperate to impress a new head coach and nothing else?

The disorientating aspect to all this is Norwich have not been far away in a defining period. Look at Brentford, and a chance inside the opening two minutes Milot Rashica would have slotted if he was wearing a Kosovan international shirt.

Look at the calamitous abdication of defensive responsibility after Kenny McLean levelled at Elland Road to gift Leeds a winner.

Although Leeds could have been out of sight by half-time, and the Bees cruised to the finishing line the week before. Both have not looked back since.

Then Rashica again, smashing a volley into those same travelling supporters at Brighton from barely eight yards out. A point from a trio of pivotal Premier League games that could have been so much more.

To fall the wrong side once or twice can be attributed to bad luck, or an opponent’s quality. To routinely come up short in prolonged losing clusters since the opening day is much more damning.