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In the third round; in the hat come Saturday. And that, frankly, is it.

29th August 2007 By theexpert Leave a Comment

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Being in a 'No win' situation is, as everyone knows, an ordeal that you can't get out of the way quickly enough.

But when you find yourselves in the position of being on the receiving end of a potential cup giant-killing act after you've just been beaten in the league, and when confidence might obviously not be as high as when things are ticking along nicely, it invariably cranks up the pressure to dangerous levels.

Of course, in cases like these if you are capable of smashing home five goals in thirty-odd minutes at the start of a game in the manner that the Canaries did in such emphatic fashion against Barnet in the previous round, all well and good, but obviously that doesn't tend to happen too often.

And just to add fuel to fire last night, it wouldn't have escaped anyone's attention that City just happened to be playing against the second lowest placed team in the country.

But to say that City simply looked nervy in the first-half because of any of the above reasons last night would not only be well wide of the mark, but also completely missing the point – seeing as a lack of composure from players in yellow shirts was but one of many aspects of their game that was certainly nowhere near up to scratch.

Norwich were outplayed in all departments in those opening 45 minutes and basically given the runaround by Rochdale.

Their two strikers, Glenn Murray and Chris Dagnall looked a threat every time the ball was played into the box and winger Ben Muirhead gave stand-in City left-back Ian Murray a torrid time down Rochdale's right flank.

Murray was primarily responsible for gifting Rochdale their lead, but if he was hoping for support from some of his team-mates to help bail him out of the uncomfortable time he was enduring, he certainly wasn't getting any.

City were second to the ball, uncreative in possession and seemingly unbalanced down their right hand side.

There was no composure on the ball and a sluggishness seemed to spread throughout the team like wildfire, as City not only failed to string together any meaningful sequences of passes, but they also made schoolboy-like errors and decisions at times.

It really was a dreadful first half – the only crumbs of comfort being that Rochdale only had a one goal lead to show for their 45 minutes of dominance and that City's performance could only get better.

?Which thankfully it did.

Dion Dublin's equaliser in the 49th minute arrived at the perfect time and instantly triggered something within the Canaries that suddenly made them start to play.

But although the game had now been turned on its head and it was City who were now in control, a second goal didn't materialise in the hour-and-a-quarter of play that followed.

For once City were successful in the penalty shoot-out that ultimately decided the game, but other than that – and the fact that Darren Huckerby made his return to first-team action – there really wasn't an awful lot more that could be looked on in a positive light – and that has to be a big concern.

When all is said and done the Canaries have placed their name in the hat for the third round draw and, to that extent, I suppose that they did get the job done.

But looking at the bigger picture, it's certainly safe to say that there's still bags of work that needs to be done if they are ever going to be able to improve the consistency to their performances this season.


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