• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

My Football Writer

My Football Writer Norwich City news… comment… analysis

Norwich City – news, comment and analysis

Find the best betting sites
  • Home
  • About us
  • The Team
  • Archives Index
  • Patreon
  • ADVERTISE
  • Contact us

City simply at a loss to find an answer to Wes and the boys. Not a good day at the office.

2nd March 2008 By theexpert Leave a Comment

Please share

There'll no doubt be a few people who'd suggest that the short training break to Spain this week wasn't conducive to the Canaries producing their best performance on Saturday.

Let's put that to bed straight away, because it would be wrong.

Norwich would undoubtedly have put in the same amount of time and effort on the training ground on the continent as they would have done had the stayed at home at a wind swept Colney ? probably more in actual fact – and it's hardly as though a two- hour flight would severely impact on the players' bodies.

However, there's no disputing the fact that for whatever reason yesterday, for 45 minutes City simply never got going.

Blackpool showed infinitely more guile, craft and quality in possession of the ball than Norwich.

They looked fitter, sharper and more aware than City. They scored two goals, could, and should, have added at least one more after easily navigating themselves goalside of the Canaries' rearguard to generate one versus one situations with David Marshall, and they generally out-played Norwich in every department of the pitch.

City fell asleep for Blackpool's opener. No-one reacted to Marshall's initial save and Stephen McPhee was gifted the first of his two strikes at the far post. McPhee simply gambled on the ball being kept alive whereas a four or five yellow shirts simply stood and watched.

But far from that opening goal waking City from their slumber, it didn't change events one little bit.

Blackpool continued to carve City apart every time they attacked, while at the other end Paul Rachubka in the visitor's goal was virtually untested.

McPhee doubled his tally and Blackpool's lead five minutes before the break, and the half-time whistle really couldn't come quickly enough for a bedraggled City who must have made their way back to their dressing room feeling like condemned men walking to the gallows knowing full well the verbal volley that they were about to receive from their manager.

It was much better from the Canaries after the break it must be said, although that was as good as a given considering the magnitude of their first-half ineptitude.

Suddenly Norwich were a couple of yards quicker than they had been in the opening period, but despite Jamie Cureton halving their deficit after the referee had awarded City a dubious penalty to stir things up a touch and finally make the contest more interesting, it didn't really change the general manner in which the game panned out.

Simon Grayson's men were still able to move the ball about the pitch with the same commendable efficiency as they had done all too frequently from the start despite finding themselves on the back foot for longer spells than had been the case earlier on, with Wes Hoolahan in particular being virtually unplayable at times.

Blackpool's diminutive playmaker was so creative and comfortable with the ball at his feet that you feared the worst when he was in possession, and many of the Seasiders' second-half goal-scoring chances emanated from the influential Irishman.

City huffed and puffed, but without ever managing to muster enough of a sustained period of pressure to overly trouble the visitors.

After all, whenever City threatened to grab an equaliser, so Blackpool promptly went down the other end of the pitch and threatened to put the game to bed once and for all with a third goal. Their victory was fully deserved.

No, forget about jet-lag, tiredness and all that. It was nothing to do with that at all. Norwich just didn't perform.

Thankfully they have been very few and far between since Glenn Roeder's arrival, but this was clearly a bad day at the office.


Please share

Filed Under: Column, The Expert

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

FIND MY FOOTBALL WRITER ON

As featured on NewsNow: Norwich City news” style=

Norwich City News 24/7

#NCFC LATEST

marvellousmrx Ivy @marvellousmrx ·
51m

Welcome back, Lukas 👏 #ncfc

Reply on Twitter 1618860506252726274 Retweet on Twitter 1618860506252726274 Like on Twitter 1618860506252726274 Twitter 1618860506252726274
marvellousmrx Ivy @marvellousmrx ·
51m

Welcome back, Lukas 👏 #ncfc

Reply on Twitter 1618860388464103424 Retweet on Twitter 1618860388464103424 Like on Twitter 1618860388464103424 Twitter 1618860388464103424
cgarrod3 Connor🔰 @cgarrod3 ·
1h

Still one of my favourite photos on my phone this 🤩🔰 #ncfc

Reply on Twitter 1618857043707953153 Retweet on Twitter 1618857043707953153 Like on Twitter 1618857043707953153 Twitter 1618857043707953153
chrisbart0n 🔰Chris Barton🐤 @chrisbart0n ·
1h

Crouchy and his time on loan at Dunston Hall #NCFC 😂

Reply on Twitter 1618853826228023296 Retweet on Twitter 1618853826228023296 1 Like on Twitter 1618853826228023296 1 Twitter 1618853826228023296
nickdye55 Nick Dye @nickdye55 ·
9h

Gabby Sara the championships Zidane #ncfc #championship

Reply on Twitter 1618737381728989185 Retweet on Twitter 1618737381728989185 Like on Twitter 1618737381728989185 1 Twitter 1618737381728989185
Load More...

Copyright © 2023 21VC Ltd | All rights reserved | Not to be reproduced without prior permission.

Disclaimer: The information on this website consists of personal opinions. Whilst we have taken all reasonable steps to ensure that the information contained on these Web pages is accurate and correct at the time of writing we do not accept any liability whatsover for any loss or damage caused by reliance on this information.

We do not accept any responsibility for information contained in other websites to which this site links. We strongly advise users to check any information before acting or relying on it.

Developed and Hosted by