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Yes, City could have stolen a point. But it would have been exactly that – a total steal.

24th October 2007 By theexpert Leave a Comment

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There was a good case for arguing that had certain decisions been different, the Canaries might easily have won the game against Bristol City on Saturday.

Of course, they would have done so anyway if the batch of goal-scoring chances that were created during the opening 20 minutes or so of excellent attacking football had been converted rather than squandered, but looking at things purely from a tactical point of view, City's line-up wasn't conducive to them operating to their full potential.

Much has already been made in the time since Norwich suffered their seventh defeat of the season at the weekend, and suffice to say that the issues concerning the deployment of Messers Huckerby, Croft, Lappin and Murray in particular at some stage or other during the game against the high-flying Robins have been more than adequately debated.

But on inspection of the positioning and composition of the Canaries team at kick-off at Turf moor last night, it would be hard to refute that once again certain judgments were open to question.

No Lee Croft wide on the right again, while fit again and yet-to-be-used Jimmy Smith and last season's Championship Golden Boot winner Jamie Cureton were only given a place on the substitute's bench.

That said, considering that the Canaries found themselves two goals down before 180 seconds had elapsed would have rendered any composition of the team-sheet pretty much irrelevant ? game over before it had barely begun.

And for the remaining 42 minutes of the first-half City demonstrated precisely why they are now the statistically joint-worst team in the division.

Norwich's marking was basically non-existent, and time after time Burnley forwards Kyle Lafferty and especially Robbie Blake were afforded all the time and space they could only dream of to receive the ball, turn with it and run directly at the City backline, whereas Norwich's own attacking threat in return amounted to almost nothing.

With Huckerby unable to trouble full-back Graham Alexander and opposite wide man Luke Chadwick playing anywhere but wide, City basically had nowhere to go.

Burnley could – and should – have wrapped the game up with more goals long before the half-time whistle sounded, and the fact they didn't very nearly ended up costing them dearly.

Steve Cotterill's men eased off completely in the second-half it has to be said, but the Canaries do at least deserve a certain amount of credit for taking the game to their opponents and nearly stealing a point from the encounter.

Chris Brown netting his first goal for the Canaries was the one real bright spot in an otherwise dark night for Norwich, and if Jamie Cureton had capitalised on Brown's excellent slide rule pass and steered the ball past Gabor Kiraly rather than straight at him late on, it would have indeed been some response from what had undoubtedly been a start to a game the stuff of which nightmares are made.

But after an opening period as bad as the one that City had endured, ?stealing? a draw would undeniably have been the operative word.

The disappointment for everyone connected with the Canaries as far as this 2007-08 campaign is concerned is certainly acute, but as we would no doubt all acknowledge, it hasn't primarily been about who's played, who hasn't, or even in what positions they should or shouldn't have been playing that have been the overriding problems here, but more an evident lack of leadership, effort, confidence or especially quality on any given occasion.

And depressingly enough, for half the game again last night, it was absolutely no different.


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