?Out-played, out-fought, out-thought…?
Just some of the quotes emanating from the City camp after they had just delivered 90 minutes of? well?completely unacceptable football at the Rioch Arena at the weekend.
And that's the worrying thing here, because ?bad days at the office? ? (there's another one) ? are now becoming something of a more frequent event.
City have taken just five points from their last six matches and it's safe to say that the general standard of their performances have definitely taken a nosedive.
Now of course it would be only to right at this juncture to highlight that we'd have all gladly accepted the current situation the Canaries find themselves in in the Coca-Cola Championship at present some four months ago, and that the primary job that City boss Glenn Roeder was hired to do has already been done.
But as credible as that particular feat has been in itself, it doesn't alter the fact that it has to be a whole lot better than it is at present all the same.
Not since Norwich went to Cardiff over a month ago and delivered a hugely impressive performance that invariably lead to City fans casting a sneaky eye at the play-off places have the Canaries fully played to their potential.
Even when they beat Barnsley at home just over two weeks ago their performance was unconvincing, by and large, and aside from a decent second-half effort at Watford last week the majority most of the other displays have been pretty meagre, in truth.
Perhaps the most perplexing thing of all at Coventry on Saturday though was the fact that at no time did City appear to be capable of altering the course of the game.
Even during this relatively recent poor run of form there has been instances in most of the matches of City showing signs of life and encouraging moments of play at some point that had promised that their fortunes were imminently set to change.
Not at Coventry though. Norwich were basically ran ragged for an hour-and-a-half and could easily have suffered a substantially heavy defeat than they did, and this, don't forget, was against a team that was precariously positioned just one place above the relegation zone before kick-off and accordingly hardly a team in a rich vein of form or one to engage with an abundance fear or trepidation.
They have received much heavier defeats in terms of the scoreline of course, but whatever could go wrong did go wrong, meaning that Saturday's performance at Coventry was arguably City's most unimpressive display since that horrible day down at Plymouth back in November ? and that's saying something.
How they go about picking themselves up tonight and producing something more befitting a team that not only had the Norwich supporters but also the rest of the country rubbing its eyes in disbelief during that incredible 13-game unbeaten run not so long ago is anyone's guess. But it's safe to assume that tonight's opponents aren't simply going to roll over and allow City to gently play their way back into form.
There are just two things that really need to be said about visitors Stoke City. Firstly, their style of play is football at its most basic and uncomplicated worst.
Tony Pulis makes no excuses whatsoever for the manner in which he instructs his team to go about winning football matches, and this you have to accept, is something that they do very well indeed and which ultimately has seen them rocket to second place in the table to be in with a real shout of winning promotion to the Premier League.
They hit the ball long at every opportunity, they get men forward quickly into supporting positions and they try to suffocate their opponents in the final third of the pitch.
Occasionally ? very occasionally ? they will take a breather and try to retain possession in wide areas of the pitch, where it has to be said that they do possess players in the team with impressive technical ability, but that is generally the exception to the rule.
Because Stoke, my friends, are an even more direct team than Watford. Enough said?
It promises to be a very interesting encounter indeed for a whole multitude of reasons.
Leave a Reply