They say a picture paints a thousand words.
Well, there was an image of the face of Arturo Lupoli frozen onto the monitors around the ground on Saturday just after he'd missed THAT chance, and I tell you what, a thousand words wouldn't even be half enough to begin to describe it.
Just as words wouldn't do justice to the faces of 23,000 City fans and manager Glenn Roeder at that particular moment either.
I suppose you could call it a mixture of something bordering between disbelief and nausea.
Not again, surely?
Well, 'fraid so folks.
To be fair to Lupoli, even if he had fully capitalised on an opportunity that Ray Charles, Roy Orbison and Stevie Wonder would all have backed themselves to convert, it wouldn't have counted anyway ? or at least shouldn't have counted; I'm not sure whether the linesman was flagging for offside or a goal-kick when he raised his flag – given that given that there was only one defender between him and the goal, but a trivial little detail like that that pales into insignificance given that missing absolute sitters has been a recurring theme already this season.
You couldn't script it, really.
Thankfully, it took a player who despite being the top-scorer during pre-season still but can't get a game at the moment to show the strikers how to do it, and in doing so rescue the Canaries from the embarrassment of being turned over on their own patch by Blackpool of all teams after suffering similar humiliation at MK Dons and Coventry.
Just for the record, yes, City did dominate again and they did huff and puff for an hour or so before substitute Russell's introduction really gave the Canaries' adequate direction and purpose, but it's irrelevant to talk about creativity, ball-retention, team-shape and tactics, etc, and the standards or levels that the team are achieving, despite acknowledging that you have to continue to focus on the positives when all is not going according to plan… if you can't score goals.
Talk about barn doors and banjos. Norwich would struggle to hit the gates of Buckingham Palace with a hot-air balloon at the minute.
There's little else to say, really.
And the biggest concern of all right now must surely be that as the opposition is only going to get tougher, then accordingly so you would assume that all these golden opportunities are going to diminish.
Or will they?
Maybe Norwich will kick on and convert their dominance in terms of possession into goals and precious league points.
Then again, maybe they won't.
But until then, we're left with am image that perfectly encapsulates City's start to this 2008-09 season.
And, unfortunately, it's not a pretty picture.
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