City boss Glenn Roeder admitted after the game on Boxing Day that it had been particularly frustrating watching his side enjoy the majority of possession against Charlton, but not be able to turn it into goals and three points.
For my part, I said afterwards that City had basically been off-key in their last three matches, with the mid-week encounter with Alan Pardew's ten-man outfit being the classic case in point and merely highlighting the fact that despite the essential requirements regarding the physical aspect of the game still evidently being present, City had dipped beneath the impressive standards that they had set for themselves over the past couple of months.
Both the above opinions basically pointed to the same conclusion, namely that the Canaries had been underperforming and that there ought to be more to come.
Well, after yesterday's draw with what had been a considerably out-of-form Wolves side prior to kick-off, I'd suggest that neither of us were wrong.
Because once again City were never operating at full speed for the vast majority of the game.
Let's be realistic here – Wolves should have won the game yesterday and they should have won it comfortably.
For a good hour they dictated the pace of the game and were fully in control in all areas of the pitch, and the Canaries were reduced to defending deep inside their own half and trying to relieve pressure from the edge of their own penalty box.
Once again City boss Glenn Roeder sent the Canaries out in an unbalanced 4-4-2 formation with Jimmy Smith asked to play widest of what was basically a three-man midfield and with Darren Huckerby occupying the left-wing role. And once again it didn't produce the desired effect.
Huckerby often found himself faced with two men to beat when he received the ball, and consequently he wasn't able to wreak havoc in the manner he can when City operate with two wide men and are accordingly able to stretch their opponents more.
And even in midfield, where ? at least in theory due to the lopsided nature of the midfield quartet – City should have outnumbered their opponents, they came off decidedly second best.
Russell, Pattison and Smith seemed to bounce off Seyi Olofinjana on the rare occasions when they could get close enough to him to try to put in a tackle, and he, along with Darren Gibson were allowed to pick up all the knockdowns, all the second balls and seemingly pick their passes at will in the middle of the park in the first-half.
Wolves gave the impression that they were the home side given the balance of play and the undoubted dominance they were enjoying, while for their part City were generally sloppy, hesitant, unconvincing and seriously lacking urgency.
And, of course, they were also guilty of playing way too deep inside their own half.
On the rare occasions when City did put crosses into the visitor's penalty area no-one in a yellow shirt attacked them, and the number of times when David Marshall actually threw the ball out to one of his defenders as opposed to resorting to ? futilely – kicking it long, or when one of those defenders actually passed successfully into midfield could be counted on the fingers of one hand.
Very disappointing.
The introduction of Lee Croft and particularly Dion Dublin seemed to inject life into the Canaries, and only from that moment onwards were the City faithful finally given hope and encouragement that there might be something in it for their team.
Cureton equalised and it ended with honours even, but at the final whistle you were left with the feeling similar to that at Colchester a couple of weeks ago, namely that if City had started the game with the players that ultimately finished it, it might have been a completely different story.
Five wins, three draws and only one defeat from the last nine games is certainly not a run of form to be scoffed at, and, considering what had preceded it, it makes it doubly impressive.
But to allow that to cloud what has now been four games on the spin whereby City have underperformed would be akin to Captain Smith ignoring the warning of potential icebergs ahead and ordering his crew to power the Titanic at “Full steam ahead…”
And we all know what happened as a result of that. It needs to be a whole lot better.
Leave a Reply