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Time to show us guts, boys… not your nice new wardrobe and your big, flash car.

7th November 2007 By Guest Blogger Leave a Comment

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Oh to be Watford. There, after all, was a bench full of ex-Canaries overseeing a solid, well-organised and committed team.

They are blessed not so much with skill as concentration, strength, height, pace and an engrained sense of who their team-mates are and what they do. They are a fine-tuned machine, perfectly equipped to win the Championship, and able to swat lightweight opposition at a canter.

They are also, of course, what we should have been two years ago, had not a combination of poor and misplaced signings (and crucial non-signings in the Premiership and after), dressing-room bad apples (Shame you couldn't make it last night, Damien… ), conniving agents and the millstone that is 'prudence with ambition' served to dissipate the promising team built by Worthy over the first third of the decade.

And now we find ourselves here – rock bottom and points adrift.

To be fair, and I hope Glenn said as much to his new charges, a defeat at home to Watford is nothing to be ashamed of.

Given our respective positions, it was a bit like when Chelsea came to Carrow Road three years ago. The result was never really in doubt; we just had to get it out of the way in order to get back to the real job in hand – preventing relegation.

In this situation, each game must be looked at on its own, and this one had 'nil points' written all over it.

As it was, we never really looked like getting much out of it. We stood toe-to-toe with them for the first 25 minutes or so, but once Watford saw our game plan consisted – quite rightly – of trying to get behind them, they pushed up 20 yards, played the offside trap, and relied on the fact that our two speediest attacking players were, respectively, suspended and on the bench.

And whatever he is in the box, John Hartson is a waste of a large space in the centre circle. Accordingly, Martin and Croft added a touch of movement and pace, before the withdrawal of Stan's man-of-the-match, Luke Chadwick, saw us return to type.

Lob it up to Brown and watch Shittu header it back over the top of our dizzy defenders. Game over.

Of course, what with Norwich being Norwich, we helped Watford do what they had to do. Their first goal was a touch of class, although that ball between Shacks and Lappin/Drury has been the death of us too many times to mention over the past three years.

The second, however, was emblematic of all that has been wrong with our defence for far too long. Someone lost their man, someone lost concentration, and no-one reacted quickly to save our blushes.

Basic stuff – stick with your man, do not let people have free headers inside the box – seems to be beyond us.

As for the third, a mix of sucker punch and a sheer lack of physicality ensured that our goal-difference became even more of a worry. These are tough times for sure.

Any positives? Well, we battled, we scored (a rarity in recent weeks, let's face it), and we never let the game wholly get away from us.

That we were missing our talisman and our more mobile elder statesman did not help the cause.

The job now is to prepare for a tough trip to Plymouth, to instil in the players a belief and a spirit that will enable us to grind out a positive result of some sort or other.

A couple of loan signings might help, perhaps a full-back or two…

If not, then the current crop will have to dig deep and show us what they've got – guts, or just a nice wardrobe from Trumbles and a big car ?


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