Norwich City expand their SBG installation as they prepare for Premier League return
Norwich City relied on SBG’s Platform throughout their Championship campaign as they return to the Premier League at their first attempt.
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A ruthless Norwich City confirms their status as Champions of the EFL Championship and secures promotion back to the Premier League after just one season away.
Bagging a club record haul of points, best away record and one of the best defensive records, their goal now is to become an established Premier League Club. Their significant defensive improvements and willingness to take the game to opponents provide strong foundations for them to do well in the Premier League next season.
The Canaries maintain a strong, hardworking analysis department headed up by Lee Dunn (Head of Performance and Recruitment Analysis) and Matt Lewis (Senior First Team Performance Analyst), who are driven to ensuring the highest of standards in their department. With these high standards comes the need for technology and applications to make the most of every minute available. For Norwich, this meant deploying the full suite of SBG applications to facilitate them in all of their analysis processes.
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MatchTracker is central to their Pre-Match opposition analysis, combined with the use of Focus for their Matchday solution including tablets on the bench, as well as their daily training sessions. This successful season has led the analysts at Norwich to embed the Hub into their analysis workflows to further optimise and share outputs with the coaching team.
Lee Dunn explains, “MatchTracker allows us to sync all the data we have available, directly to the video, which we are then able to feedback to the coaches and players. There is limited time between games in a league as congested as the Championship, so our workflow has to be precise to deliver the best analysis as possible to our coaches and players. Focus is pivotal to us on a matchday in terms of our live capture and review, being able to review multi-angle is something that we have found beneficial when analysing various aspects of our game.”
MatchTracker and Opposition Analysis
Currently Norwich utilise MatchTracker to automate the majority of their opposition analysis processes, therefore allowing them to dissect their opponent’s performance in more detail. This is evidently paying off for them, averaging 2.11 points per game and maintaining one of the best defence records in the league.
Matt Lewis comments, “MatchTracker has been vital in our pre-match process, especially given the nature of a season in the Championship. We are able to create workbooks which are specific to our playing style to analyse opponents quickly and effectively.”
MatchTracker can cover all aspects of the game when exploring the oppositions playing style. From examining tactical playing patterns in possession, to exploring the movements and attributes of individual key players. The tailor-made dashboards help Norwich quickly pinpoint moments in the game that will help them capitalise on the opposition’s gaps in performance. A key tool for them is utilising the filters to identify moments where teams have beaten the press of Norwich’s next opponent; the analysts can then make informed decisions on how they would implement this in their own performance.
Matt Lewis, Senior First Team Performance Analyst, Norwich City:
“MatchTracker has been vital in our pre-match process, especially given the nature of a season in the Championship. We are able to create workbooks which are specific to our playing style to analyse opponents quickly and effectively.”
“The fact that we are able to use the data and video hand-in-hand, in one centralised programme allows us work efficiently. We are able to create bespoke workbooks, which enables us to identify specific scenarios within selected games which we can then use to further our analysis,” says Matt Lewis.
It is important to Norwich that they centre their analysis on their own philosophy and playing style. This is where tailoring their MatchTracker Dashboards down to the finest detail facilitates their processes. Combining data with video over multiple games allows them to measure their performance against targets and standards set to achieve their goals.
“We also use MatchTracker in our set-play analysis. We are able to quickly assess how the opposition is attacking & defending their set pieces through the visualisation tools within the software. Using the filters, we can identify their style, main set play takers, types of delivery used and the zones that teams are looking to either attack or protect, and quickly with our own bespoke workbooks, we can build a picture of what a team is aiming to do.” Dan Smith, First Team Performance Analyst.
Focus and Matchdays
Norwich ensure they are fully equipped with Focus on Matchdays; running two tablets in the dugout, one in their analyst position and one in the changing room, allowing access in all areas.
Matt adds, “Communication has been a lot smoother between coaches & analysts as we are able to explain situations a lot clearer through the use of the video, even though we are not sat together.”
The coaches rely on the ability to view multiple angles of key instances during the game. Having two devices in the dugout allows for Head Coach (Daniel Farke) to review tags tailored to his requirements, whilst at the same time Assistant Coach (Edmund Riemer) can review tags specific to his needs. A key feature of Focus is the ability to set tag pre-sets on devices, which filter the timeline content, so you are in full control of which tags are being sent to the Bench.
“Our next steps would be to utilise the sharing presentations to specific client machines, so we can be more specific with our coaches review. This would allow a lot more individual/unit-based analysis during the interval, with coaches focussing on certain aspects,” explains Matt.
Creating presentations and having instant access across multiple devices makes half time analysis quick and easy. Throughout the game Matt adds significant clips to a presentation which can then be viewed instantly in the changing room by the coaches and players at half time.
Lee Dunn, Head of Performance and Recruitment Analysis, Norwich City: