Huddersfield 0-4 Norwich City: Paddy Davitt Championship pointers

1. Going up, up, up

You could forgive the giddiness in the chant that rose from parts of the Norwich City away end after an emphatic victory for David Wagner and his Canaries’ squad.

Leicester City is the only club separating City from the Championship summit, after Ipswich stumbled at home to Daniel Farke’s Leeds in a seven-goal shoot out.

Just another madcap day in the English second tier. League tables can wait but this was further proof Wagner and his coaches could be onto something special.

Huddersfield were sliced apart, while when the Terriers did muster concerted spells of pressure in and around the visitors’ penalty box, they found no way past Angus Gunn and his study backline.

Only Josh Sargent’s first half injury, in the act of opening the floodgates, took the edge off an away win that underlined the rate of progress.

When Wagner brought Norwich to his old stomping ground towards the end of last season a bright opening gave way to a battling point as they clung on for grim life. That was only a matter of months ago but it feels like a lifetime.

Any way you want to cut this now, Norwich appear to have the tools to go anywhere in the Championship, face any opponent - from slick Southampton to the more direct approach of a Neil Warnock team - and find a way to prevail.

Not solely to prevail but to do so with a style and a panache and a goal threat that bodes well for the hard yards ahead.

2. Pleasure and pain

From high to low quite literally for Sargent. Before he returned to earth, after his perseverance and athleticism had headed Norwich in front when he pounced on his own blocked clearance from Lee Nicholls, the pain must have been shooting through his right ankle.

Nicholls’ body weight appeared to land flush on the American’s lower leg. Although his head coach felt afterwards it might have been the act of a shove from the Huddersfield home keeper.

There was treatment as he lay inside the Huddersfield goal, while concerned team mates crowded around. Sargent did manage to hobble, with assistance, around the perimeter of the pitch, as Adam Idah entered the fray before the game restarted.

Now that familiarly anxious wait for seasoned Norwich watchers to the extent of Sargent’s potential ankle ligament damage.

Wagner labelled it 'serious' and remarked on how swollen it already was. The American left the stadium with his lower right leg in a protective boot.

It may take days and scans to assess the full extent, but for a player with three goals in three Championship games it would leave a sizeable hole in the Norwich attacking armoury if he is ruled out for any length of time.

No doubt attention internally is already on the requirement to weigh up if Norwich must twist again in the closing days of the transfer window. Should the news on Sargent’s considered prognosis be of the gloomy variety.

Wagner suggested in his post-match media the answers could already lie within his current squad.

Adam Forshaw was confirmed earlier on Saturday to provide central midfield cover, but there was no appetite between now and next Friday night’s deadline to disrupt a striking unit which had looked robust and potent in equal measure.

Ashley Barnes emphatically despatched his penalty, but neither the experienced forward or Idah offer quite that commanding focal point Sargent was fulfilling in the early league games of this post-Pukki era at Norwich City.

3. But hang on…

Was that not Idah calmly controlling Przemyslaw Placheta’s turnover to draw Nicholls and guide a strike inside the near post to seal the victory?

Add in the surging earlier run onto Barnes’ ball around the corner, to race away down the right and whip the most gorgeous near post ball for Jon Rowe to continue his goal-a-game ratio. It marked the type of impact Idah would have craved when he was thrown into the fray as an emergency substitute following Sargent’s abrupt end.

Wagner has preferred Sargent and Barnes in tandem in an optimism-fuelled Championship start to the new campaign.

That has again cast Idah in the role of patient support act - which so far has defined his senior career at Carrow Road. When it felt like a breakthrough moment under Dean Smith, and that first Premier League goal in a home win over Everton, injury intervened to end his top flight chances.

There remains too much of the intangible around a football player highly rated by those who matter inside Carrow Road, but yet to emerge as the freescoring forward option he looked at younger age group levels.

Idah himself has spoken about the periods of self-doubt and the negative impact of unflattering social media commentary. Unquestionably, given his athletic power and physical gifts, there is a player Wagner could mould into an effective attacking option.

Wagner was also quick to point out at Huddersfield the confidence boosting 96th minute winner to sink Hull on the opening weekend. Idah has already made his mark. 

But he needs to lay down a marker. He did that at the John Smith’s. You would expect a League Cup start at Bristol City in the week might be another opportunity to lead the line, and offer compelling evidence he can step up.

Irrespective of Sargent’s status, Norwich need Idah to turn up the pressure on those in possession of the shirt.

4. Centre ground

While it will not grab any headlines in the midst of another freescoring display from the Canaries a first Championship clean sheet of the campaign will delight Gunn, Ben Gibson and Shane Duffy.

The Irishman was furious when Millwall grabbed a scant consolation goal at Carrow Road the previous weekend with a shot that veered around the centre back and past the unsighted Gunn.

But the trio were excellent in periods when, despite the one-sided final scoreline, Huddersfield genuinely caused Wagner’s side problems with their urgent pressure from the front.

Gunn made two fine stops in either half, while Duffy and Gibson put their bodies on the line. The Irishman’s aerial prowess inside his own penalty area was again underlined in those passages when Huddersfield looked to launch the ball from deep.

With the transfer chatter around Andrew Omobamidele subsiding in the last few weeks should the young centre back still be in the building, by this time next week, then he faces a challenge to oust two more experienced operators.

Duffy and Gibson delivered a compelling case in Yorkshire they are the first choice at this early stage of the season.