Norwich City: 4 Things Learned About Leicester City Defeat

Norwich City supporters will be disappointed with their level of performance on Saturday, and to be out of the FA Cup. It was a 2-1 home defeat against a Championship club, but an expensively assembled team. 

Nevertheless, the Premier League side would have been expected to beat the lower league opposition. The Canaries will just have to put it down to one of those days. The club would rather lose in a FA Cup game then in the Premier League.

Lessons are learned in every game, so here is a slideshow to review the match.

Lacking Premier League Quality

Norwich City have proved this season that they have plenty of Premier League quality. However, that quality was seriously lacking on Saturday afternoon. Players like Elliott Bennett and Wes Hoolahan looked bright enough, but their quality was sadly lacking. Multiple players were guilty of poor passing, crossing and finishing.

However, the most disappointing factor was the lack of quality possession football. It seemed like the Canaries could not string two or three passes together in the whole game. Players can be forgiven for having an off day. Nevertheless, surely the least the Premier League side should do at home is dominate the possession. 

The match statistics show that Leicester had 56 percent of the ball.

Leon Barnett Showed Why He Is Norwich's 5th Choice Central Defender

Don't get me wrong, Leon Barnett is a decent enough defender, and he showed that in the game on Saturday. However, it is his distribution that leads to the biggest problems. 

The defender is fairly predictable. More often than not, he launched the ball long whenever he had it. Simeon Jackson was chasing everything, but more often than not he was open against Wes Morgan. At times it looked as if Morgan was twice the size of Jackson.

Some people may feel that the Canadian international had a poor game. But for my money, he never had a chance. 

Team Selection/Use of Subs

Paul Lambert showed that he wanted to protect as many of his key first-team players as possible. It is debatable if this was a weakened lineup than what would be seen in the Premier League. However, injuries permitting, I would have expected to have seen Grant Holt, Andrew Surman, John Ruddy and Kyle Naughton all starting, had this been a league fixture.

James Vaughan, Aaron Wilbraham and Bradley Johnson all entered the game from the bench. Vaughan and Wilbraham looked lively. Nevertheless, I thought it was more about resting Fox, Morison and Jackson for the game against Manchester United.

However, the one good side is it allowed Vaughan to get some much-needed match fitness.

Complacency/Managing Expections

Norwich City fans have been getting used to losing cup games. The Leicester game was one the fans expected to win. Maybe the team thought it would be an easy win.

However, this is all a problem for Lambert, because fans will start to expect certain results. The same can be said of the Premier League. If Norwich finish in the top half of the table then the majority of fans will expect the same again. However, the second season in the top flight is notoriously tough.

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