Smith takeaways: Selection calls; Hayden and Dimi updates; Watford

Published: 12:34 PM October 14, 2022

Updated: 12:41 PM October 14, 2022

Dean Smith had his say on some of the key issues ahead of Norwich City’s Championship trip to Watford.

The Canaries’ boss held his pre-match press call at Colney on Friday morning.

This is what Smith had to say on the following.

Do you have a selection dilemma for Watford after the manner of the Preston defeat? Particularly in terms of keeper?

I have maybe six or seven. We’ll be having conversations like that every Thursday and Friday, when we’re leading into a game. What we won’t be is too rash because it is our first defeat in 10 games. And I’ve got to be mindful of that as well.

But during the last 10 games, the team has changed at times. So you know, I’ll be looking at that.  

It was a game that we should have won. We played well enough to win it. But we’ve made bad errors and that was the frustrating bit for me. Too many of our mistakes led to goals. 

Part of our debrief on the Monday, for the second goal, was getting the three players involved, Gibbo (Liam Gibbs), Max (Aarons) and Tim (Krul), to talk about it, because that’s the only way you’re going to learn from it and eradicate mistakes.

It was a simple pass from Tim to make but then you want one of the other two to take responsibility. If that happens, the goal doesn’t happen so we encourage them to do so.

And the third goal is a deflection. I think Tim’s got wrong footed slightly and he’ll feel like he should have got a stronger hand. The reaction has been good. They’ve trained really well.

We had the midweek trip to the (Leicester) Tigers, which I thought they all enjoyed as well. But the proof will be on Saturday at Watford. 

Fitness check on the squad

Sam (Byram) has trained (substituted at half-time against Preston with a hip issue). He trained yesterday. And he’ll train today. So he’ll make himself available for selection. Of those who were involved last week everybody has come through.

Isaac (Hayden) has trained this week as well. Last Saturday we eased him in (post-match practice game at Carrow Road). But this week he trained properly. And we’ll just see if there’s a reaction from it. Dimi (Giannoulis) is close to starting training next week as well. We’re starting to get our injuries back, which is good.

(Adam Idah update?) I think he’s on track. But it was always a six week recovery from the actual surgery before he can get on grass. He’s still with the medical staff. 

Watford under Slaven Bilic

He started with a really good win, first away game at Stoke (4-0), who themselves got a good result last weekend, which just shows you the Championship, but they’ve lost the last couple. There’ll be smarting at the moment and he’ll have them flying.

They’ll turn it around, and Slavs will, to be honest. We played West Bromwich during the Covid outbreak, it was one of our practice games just to get our guys back to fitness. They came over to Villa Park at the time. He is a really good guy.

They’ve had three games under him and I think Slav came out after his first game and said he didn’t feel they had the players to go and play the system that they were playing before. Which tells me they’ll probably stick to four at the back. 

They’ve got a really good set of players for this level, as they should do like ourselves being a team that came down.