My Football Writer Norwich City news… comment… analysis
Norwich City – news, comment and analysis
So what exactly does City boss Peter Grant say to his players before they head out of the home team dressing-room and into the Carrow Road cauldron tomorrow night?
After all, he's probably said everything that it's possible to say to try to the Canaries already this season, be it prior to a game in the form of trying to lift the players so that they will perform, or especially afterwards when they've returned from the pitch having not done anything of the sorts.
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Dion Dublin today strode straight back onto centre stage and, as ever, wasted little or no time in hitting nail after nail on the head.
The 38-year-old has, of course, missed City's last three games due to suspension. But now he's back – just in time for tomorrow's home clash with Scunthorpe United on which all manner of events could potentially hang.
It is not, in short, any time for faint hearts. Cue Dion.
Was it a depressed drssing room? ?No.? How …
Hard-pressed City boss Peter Grant was nothing if not realistic at Colney this morning. He knows he works in a results business.
Right now – for a hundred and one reasons – he's not getting results. And as the Canaries prepare for tomorrow night's home clash with newly-promoted Scunthorpe United so he knows all-too well that he needs a result to ease the sniping from the sidelines.
And from a result flows so much more – not least the kind of winning confidence …
If ever there was a club that was holding out for a hero, it is Norwich City.
But even as Dion Dublin prepares to return to the fray tomorrow night following his three match ban for the 'head butt' aimed at Danny Mills, so City boss Peter Grant has warned against expecting miracles from the 38-year-old.
The confidence and belief his team so sorely lacks has to come from within each individual player – not from one, single individual. However influential that player …
Don't ask why, but every time Stan thinks of City at this precise moment an image springs to mind that he can't rid himself of. It's a scene straight out of Das Boot…
A German naval uniform bedecked PG is stood at the periscope of U39 with a surly looking Duffy stood stoically beside to his left. The news isn't good, the hunter has become the hunted and the mood of tension is so thick it could be cut by a frankfurter.
A destroyer has been spotted, …
So where do we go from here?
Forget the fact that there's not a cat in hell's chance of Sheffield Wednesday sitting in the bottom three places in the table for much longer – and therefore this hardly being a home defeat against one of the worst teams in the Coca-Cola Championship – because on this showing City are in big trouble now anyway.
You almost get the feeling though that anyone not present in the City of Manchester Stadium, and therefore either having had …
City star Simon Lappin called on his team-mates to “repay the faith” that hard-pressed Canary chief Peter Grant had shown in them by digging both the Carrow Road club and manager out of their current troubles.
Yesterday's 1-0 home defeat by bottom-of-the-table Sheffield Wednesday merely racked the level of frustration up another couple of notches as the Canaries found themselves 21st in the table and without a goal to their name in six hours of football after that fifth defeat in …
Under-fire City boss Peter Grant admitted that the chorus of boos that greeted this evening's final whistle hurt.
As, you suspect, would the furious chants of 'What a load of rubbish!' and 'You don't know what you're doing!' that greeted Wade Small's 75th minute winner as the Canaries slumped to a 1-0 home defeat to bottom of the table Sheffield Wednesday.
Once again the Carrow Road club had fluffed nigh-on every line once the TV cameras …
If I was Granty, the biggest date in my diary right now would be Saturday, October 20.
That's the one you pencil in with big, fat red marker pen on the office calendar. At home to Bristol City. Saturday, October 20.
Get there and I'd be breathing a big, big sigh of relief.
Because at certain stages in any manager's life, you've got to try and second guess the board's intentions and look at the world through their eyes.
And given …
It's something a of a surreal situation looking ahead to tomorrow's clash with bottom club Sheffield Wednesday with a genuine sense of optimism after the Canaries have just lost their fifth game in seven matches.
Anyone present at the City of Manchester Stadium on Tuesday night though will share exactly the same feelings, because what we witnessed from the Canaries against the team currently sat third in the Premier League table was everything and more that we have been …
Not for the first time in Part II of his Canary career, City favourite Jamie Cureton was knocking one or two nails firmly on the head.
This time, the word up for discussion began with the letter 'P'. And given Norwich's sorry start to the new season, funnily enough the word in question wasn't 'promotion'. Nor was it even 'play-off'.
It was 'pressure' – of which there will be plenty once the Sky cameras start to roll at 5.20pm …
City youngster Michael Spillane might not have friends in high places – yet. But he certainly has got friends in the right kind of places as Canary keeper David Marshall backed the 18-year-old's claims for a second successive start.
The two, of course, could find themselves separated by little more than 20 yards if the Republic of Ireland international is asked to step into Gary Doherty's shoes should the Canary centre-half fail a late fitness test on his groin.
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City teenager Michael Spillane could find himself very much in demand this Saturday – be it either in the heart of that much-troubled Canary defence or that ever-changing Norwich midfield, the 18-year-old could find himself with a big job to do once the Sky cameras start to roll.
It is a game that the Canaries can not afford to lose. Not at home to the bottom club in the Championship.
For while the season may still only be eight games old and the play-off places might be …
Now Stanley has never claimed to be an economist – the E he got in his A-level Economics would testify to that.
In Stanley's defence he would say that was partly caused by Julie Palmer dropping Economics to do History, but that dear reader is definitely a story for another day. However Stanley, like all City diehards always takes an interest, albeit an ill-informed and slightly baffled one, in the annual publishing of the club's accounts.
Now Stanley grew up in a …
In theory, City boss Peter Grant will spend the next 48-hours keeping his fingers firmly crossed that Gary Doherty's groin is willing to play ball for the Sky Sports cameras on Saturday evening.
In practice, the hard-pressed Canary chief admitted at Colney this morning, he might nip all the uncertainty in the bud earlier and name his side for the crucial Sheffield Wednesday clash 24 hours early – with or without the struggling Doherty.
By this time tomorrow Norwich …
City winger Lee Croft had encouraging words for two of Tuesday night's shining lights as the Canaries look to take their encouraging Carling Cup performance into this weekend's crunch clash at home to Sheffield Wednesday.
Not too long ago, Croft was a promising young player himself with the architects of Norwich's latest Cup downfall, Manchester City.
But ? only just over a year after arriving in Norfolk – Tuesday saw him as the player with the most …
Let's not do what's happening on the pitch. It was God-awful last Saturday; let's wait to see what this Saturday brings to work out just which way that wind is blowing.
Let's do what's happening off the pitch and the two, different lights in which the club's latest set of accounts were viewed.
'Bleak' was the word on many a lip and headline as the club's executive – those charged with the day-to-day business of making sure that …
It's hardly ideal when you find yourself down the proverbial bare bones barely a few weeks into the season.
And especially so after your team has desperately struggled to find its feet to date, has just delivered its worst performance for many a year and is pitched against one of the form teams in the Premier League… But that was the situation facing Peter Grant at the City of Manchester Stadium last night.
Now it wasn't as though this was solely a case of …
Hang on a minute, Stan has found a pulse.
Having thought a combination of clogged arteries, seizure and complete collapse had rendered the patient DOA, Dr Stan can report that there is life in the old club yet.
And that, Stan suggests, is why we all love football and Norwich City FC – there must always be hope to bolster the faith.
Now, having got a bunch of mixed metaphors out of the way, let's get to the crux of it.
Norwich went to Man City – …
After a stuttering start to the season, including five defeats in the last seven games, there are not too many positives to cling onto at the moment.
But, according to Manchester City boss Sven Goran Eriksson, if the Canaries continue from where they left off last night then they will soon be climbing the Championship table.
A last gasp Georgios Samaras goal meant the Norfolk club were out of the Carling Cup for yet another year but their performance was one to build on. …