A lot has been said of how Hughton is a defensive manager, but the team doesnt have a very good defence. This is where you have to be a little bit careful with your use of stats, since they can tell a different story depending on how you use them. For instance, the raw facts are the team has conceded 39 goals and have a goal difference of -20. However, we all know that doesnt tell the full story since the numbers are slanted due to some heavy defeats such as 7-0 against Man City and 4-1 against Arsenal. In the games that really matter, the defence has performed pretty well and kept nine clean sheets this season; only Southampton, Spurs, Chelsea, Arsenal and West Ham have kept more. As said before, the key to Norwichs survival will come from picking up slender wins from the games that matter involving the teams around them. Hughton kept the team in the league last season, so should be trusted to do the same to some extent. Its also worth noting that the team has now kept more clean sheets than they managed last season. There is also every prospect that the team will concede less than the 58 goals they leaked last season.
James Kent is a freelance writer published on Yahoo! Sports, Bleacher Report, FTBpro, Bloomberg Sports and many others. He has also been featured in the Daily Telegraph, Zoo Magazine, MSN Sport and the Manchester Evening News.
His role on What Culture is currently to produce compelling football articles that nearly always use of combination of stats and strong opinion. Feel free to connect with James via Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus.
