<p class="western">Former Aston Villa boss Dean Smith experienced just eight days of unemployment before landing a new job as Norwich City&#8217;s manager.</p>
<p>Fantasy Premier League author <a href="https://twitter.com/Davvawavva">David Wardale</a> takes a look at what we can expect from the latest man at the Carrow Road helm.</p>
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<h2>The Manager</h2>
<p class="western">Dean Smith has signed a two-and-a-half-year deal at Norwich, replacing Daniel Farke, who had been in charge at the Canaries since 2017.</p>
<p class="western">The timing of Farke&#8217;s dismissal raised a few eyebrows – Norwich had just won their first league game of the season, against Brentford, after all.</p>
<p class="western">But it was no coincidence that the decision, by Norwich&#8217;s Sporting Director Stuart Webber, came right before November&#8217;s international break as it bought the club plenty of time to find a replacement for Farke.</p>
<p class="western">Even then, the appointment of Smith came swiftly, with Webber explaining his decision thus:</p>
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<p class="western">“Dean has an outstanding track record and as soon as he made it clear that he was ready to go straight back into a managerial role we contacted him immediately.”</p>
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<h2 class="western">Dean Smith&#8217;s Managerial Record</h2>
<p class="western">Smith cut his managerial teeth with spells at Walsall and Brentford before landing the Villa job three years ago.</p>
<p class="western">He guided the side to promotion from the Championship during his first season in charge and then experienced an up and down couple of Premier League campaigns.</p>
<p class="western">In the 2019/20 season, Villa escaped relegation on the final day of the season with a draw against West Ham which consigned Watford to the drop instead.</p>
<p class="western">The Villains also made it to the final of the EFL Cup, losing 2-1 to Manchester City.</p>
<p class="western">The following season involved a major leap forward for the club, with stand-out performances from <strong>Jack Grealish (£7.7m)</strong> and new signing <strong>Ollie Watkins (£7.3m)</strong>, who marked his first Premier League campaign with 14 goals, nine assists and an impressive 168 FPL points.</p>
<p class="western">Villa finished 11<sup>th</sup>, boosted by a fine away record that brought in 30 of the team&#8217;s 55 points.</p>
<p class="western">The side won nine and drew three of their 19 matches on the road, helped by Covid-19 restrictions which massively reduced the usual home advantage enjoyed by clubs.</p>
<p class="western">But despite big backing in the transfer market for the 2021/22 season, the loss of Grealish to Man City presented a major challenge to Smith and the team and he was sacked after a Gameweek 11 loss at Southampton – Villa&#8217;s fifth straight league defeat.</p>
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<h2 class="western">What System Will Smith Use At Norwich?</h2>
<p class="western">Despite occasional forays into a 3-5-2 formation involving wing-backs, Smith generally used either a 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1 at Villa, with two inside forwards or wingers playing off a lone striker.</p>
<p class="western">The summer purchase of <strong>Danny Ings (£7.7m)</strong> meant a wider role for Watkins, although Smith struggled to make the pair of forwards work consistently well in tandem regardless of the system.</p>
<p class="western">Norwich under Farke utilised a similar formation, with last year&#8217;s Championship-winning side mainly adhering to a 4-2-3-1 system which, in possession, essentially became a 2-3-5.</p>
<p class="western">That&#8217;s because Farke favoured playing with a high line and with the full-backs pushed on – a strategy that paid dividends in the Championship but left the team defensively vulnerable in the more ruthless Premier League.</p>
<p class="western">Much of Villa&#8217;s width came from those inside forwards, so while Smith certainly doesn&#8217;t stop his full-backs from attacking, he has never been inclined towards the more risk/reward role Farke demands of his defenders on the flanks.</p>
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<h2 class="western">Just How Bad Are Norwich At Present?</h2>
<p class="western">The briefest of glances at the Premier League table makes for grim reading if you&#8217;re a Norwich fan. Or Dean Smith, for that matter.</p>
<p class="western">The Canaries have a mere five points from 11 matches, with a goal difference of -21 fuelled by a catastrophically bad attacking record of just five goals and a similarly league-worst 26 conceded.</p>
<p class="western">But – and it&#8217;s a small one – all five of those points were gained across the last five gameweeks, with two 0-0 draws and that win at Brentford last time out.</p>
<p class="western">So Smith inherits a side showing a touch of form.</p>
<p class="western">The worry is that the new manager hasn&#8217;t exactly covered himself in defensive glory this season, with his Villa side conceding a third-worst 20 goals, a fifth-worst 24 big chances and a sixth-worst 161 attempts.</p>
<p class="western">With Norwich producing even worse tallies than those, the case for the defence is not exactly watertight at present.</p>
<p class="western">Offensively, things are hardly any rosier.</p>
<p class="western">Only a Tottenham team that had to endure ten matches of Nuno Espirito Santo drabness has managed fewer shots (111) than Norwich&#8217;s 112 and the Canaries currently rank bottom for attempts on target (29), shots in the box (51) and big chances (11).</p>
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<h2 class="western">Which of Norwich&#8217;s FPL Assets Could Be Worth A Look?</h2>
<p class="western">Short answer: none. Yet.</p>
<p class="western">Smith will become the first Premier League manager to lead two different teams against the same club in back-to-back matches when Norwich entertain Southampton on Saturday.</p>
<p class="western">The Canaries will then face Wolves at home and travel to Newcastle and Spurs – a mixed set of fixtures to start the new manager&#8217;s time in charge.</p>
<p class="western">But it&#8217;s going to take a palpable and consistent improvement in performance for any fantasy manager to go sniffing round the club&#8217;s assets.</p>
<p class="western">That said, there is talent in the squad.</p>
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<p class="western">The obvious star is striker <strong>Teemu Pukki (£5.8m)</strong>, who&#8217;s scored three of the side&#8217;s five goals for the season, including one in a nine-point haul at Brentford.</p>
<p class="western">The other scorer that day was midfielder <strong>Mathias Normann (£4.5m)</strong>, a late-August loanee from Russian side Rostov who has also produced an assist from his seven starts.</p>
<p class="western">Normann is second to Pukki (15 v 17) for total shots , although all 15 of them have come outside the box.</p>
<p class="western">His creativity is less impressive, with five key passes exactly half of those provided by team leaders <strong>Milot Rashica (£5.2m)</strong> and <strong>Pierre Lees-Melou (£4.9m).</strong></p>
<p class="western">Defensive assets aren&#8217;t exactly clamouring for our attention, but the bargain basement option remains <strong>Andrew Omobamidele (£3.9m)</strong>, who treated his 4.2% FPL ownership to a ten-point haul when he scored in Gameweek 10&#8217;s loss to Leeds.</p>
<p class="western">The one other player who really needs mentioning is <strong>Todd Cantwell (£5.3m)</strong>.</p>
<p class="western">The midfielder had a solid 2019/20 FPL campaign, with six goals, two assists and 111 cheap and cheerful points.</p>
<p class="western">He&#8217;s currently red flagged with a terse &#8216;Lack of match fitness&#8217; label that doesn&#8217;t begin to describe a catalogue of injuries (to achilles and back) and a range of personal issues involving family problems, some head-turning talk of transfers to bigger clubs and a few training sessions missed here and there.</p>
<p class="western">Cantwell is now working on that match fitness with the Norwich U23s and Farke delivered a none-too-glowing report on where the midfielder was at just two week ago:</p>
<p class="western">“The first topic is down to him, he has to train for two weeks without injuries or absences. He is not even close at the minute.”</p>
<p class="western">If Smith can get Cantwell fit both physically and mentally, there&#8217;s a 0.2%-owned differential in the making.</p>
<p class="western">For now, however, he&#8217;ll have to stay with the rest of the Norwich squad in the &#8216;not even going there&#8217; category.</p>
<p class="western">And it will be a major achievement by Smith if any one of them manages to escape that fantasy-forsaken place.</p>
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