• 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

Coventry (h) now takes centre stage as Gunn keeps hearts and minds in positive place

22nd February 2009 By Latest News Leave a Comment

Please share

City boss Bryan Gunn was maintaining a steadfastly upbeat tone after this weekend's 1-1 draw with Burnley.

Another two home points dropped? Or the rot of those, two back-to-back defeats stopped?

As ever, opinion will be split between those who invariably deem their glass to be half-full – and those for whom the glass is half-empty.

For both parties, however, next Saturday's home clash with Coventry City is the big one. Burnley are a decent side; big, strong, awkward, organised and in form – the biggest trick to this weekend was not to lose.

Bolt three points onto this weekend's one with victory over the Sky Blues and the Canaries could regain touch with the little gaggle of clubs that continue to hover just above the drop zone.

Ironically, neighbours Ipswich could have done City a big favour by their 3-1 away win at Queen's Park Rangers last night; with the Loftus Road punters calling for the dismissal of hapless chief Paulo Sousa as Bernie Ecclestone's millions gets them no nearer the Premiership, that away trip to the Smoke next week looks a little less intimidating.

In the meantime, however, Gunn's thoughts were trained solely on that Coventry clash – the first of a dozen cup finals in which the Canary goalkeeping legend has to save Norwich's Championship skin.

“I think our local paper deduced that we needed to 21 points,” he said after yesterday's proceedings.

“I've never mentioned any number of points, but I did say that we need to win the majority of our games that we have remaining. It might be 21 points; they might be right; I hope they are and we get them.

“It's 12 cup finals – and a massive home game against Coventry next week.”

Asked directly whether or not he thought they'd do it, Gunn remained firmly with the glass half-full brigade. In fairness, he's never going to say anything different. 'No, we've not got a prayer… we're going down with all hands…' was unlikely to cross his lips.

There some must-win games in that 12-strong list – Watford at home and Plymouth at home principal among them. Thereafter, however, and you wouldn't bet your house on Norwich losing at home to, say, Cardiff City and then winning away at Portman Road. Such is the way with Norwich City.

“I think that we'll do it – I believe that we'll do it. And there's no sense me sitting here as manager and telling you anything different,” he said, clearly determined that the players heads remained in a positive place; that his belief and conviction proved infectious.

“I hope that we've got across to the players that they can believe that they can do it,” he added. “And they're disappointed in the dressing room now that they've not got three points against a team that are chasing possible promotion to the Premier League.

“And that's the sort of attitude and commitment and passion that we want in the dressing room. And, again, if we can get that in our remaining six home games and our remaining six away games, I'll be very happy.”

One young man who was very happy indeed at yesterday's events – if not the final score – was Academy youngster Luke Daley who was granted his first team debut by the new chief.

Under the old regime, the young man who put the brightest and best of Arsenal's youngsters to the sword last autumn barely figured in Glenn Roeder's thoughts; it was always Korey Smith and Tom Adeyemi who were pencilled in for a little look-see in April-time.

But with the Canaries desperately short of genuine pace anywhere in their senior make-up, so the 19-year-old, one-time Hethersett High School pupil got the nod. The warmth of his reception when he made his first entrance onto the big stage for the game's final 12 minutes confirmed once again how much the Canary faithful like to see one of their own emerge at first team level.

The sight of Jamie Cureton offering the teenager some final words of advice and encouragement as the pair swapped places was a decent touch from City's goal-scorer; some 15 years ago and he was making the same, nervous entrance as Daley.

“Curo [Cureton] told me to do what I normally do, keep calm and overall have a good game,” Daley told the club's official website afterwards.

Paired with the on-loan Chris Killen in the game's dying moments, the Academy youngster barely got a sniff; nothing for him to sink his teeth into either space or chance-wise.

Killen, of course, was given a very hard act to follow after Carl Cort delivered another commanding performance – one that should have been crowned by City's second goal but for a point-blank, reaction save from Clarets' No1 Brian Jensen.

The importance of next weekend's home clash with Coventry is not lost on the youngster either.

“We know what we're capable of doing and we need to look forward to a win next weekend,” said Daley, convinced that the quality was still there to dig the Canaries out of the hole that they're in.

“We've got a good team here – and I believe we can do well so we need to keep playing and taking each games as it comes,” he said.

As for his own hopes and ambitions, he wasn't counting too many chickens. Gunn may well be of a mind to factor Cody McDonald into his thinking ahead of the Academy starlet as and when the ex-Essex scaffolder gets fully up-to-speed in his new, professional environment.

“I've got to keep going now, working really hard and making sure that I get into the squad,” he said.

“Then I have to ensure I get on to the bench and keep progressing from there.”


Please share

Filed Under: Latest news

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

dekspomar Deks Pomar @dekspomar ·
49m

Tweet:Surprise
Paco Rabanne
Harden
Zinchenko
Martinelli
#COYG
#TheMaskedSinger
Bultinck
Onana
#ncfc
Martial
Luiz Felipe
Dries Van Langenhove
#BBLFinal
Flugzeugträger
Dries Van Langenhove
Boden
Sean Dyche
Marta Riesco
Daily

Reply on Twitter 1621943414366281730 Retweet on Twitter 1621943414366281730 Like on Twitter 1621943414366281730 Twitter 1621943414366281730
danieiemery Daniel Emery @danieiemery ·
50m

Some good #NCFC news today...

Jonathan Tomkinson made his full league debut for Stevenage and won 100% of his duels to help them keep a clean sheet.

Well done that man.

Reply on Twitter 1621943161017843714 Retweet on Twitter 1621943161017843714 Like on Twitter 1621943161017843714 2 Twitter 1621943161017843714
benhuntley2000 Ben @benhuntley2000 ·
50m

Truly shocking! #NCFC

Reply on Twitter 1621943109117411331 Retweet on Twitter 1621943109117411331 Like on Twitter 1621943109117411331 Twitter 1621943109117411331
canariestrust The Canaries Trust @canariestrust ·
51m

AMAZING SUPPORT TODAY for @TheFeedNorwich - we can’t wait to share with you home much we have raised tomorrow.

In the meantime, you can TOP THE TOTAL UP by donating to this amazing cause below.

Thank you #ncfc and #bur fans. #NORBUR

https://www.justgiving.com/campaign/feedwinter

Reply on Twitter 1621942798755762177 Retweet on Twitter 1621942798755762177 1 Like on Twitter 1621942798755762177 1 Twitter 1621942798755762177
wiseo40 Carl Wiseman @wiseo40 ·
53m

After a few hours mulling it over ,I still believe we have one of the thickest fan bases #ncfc #otbc

Reply on Twitter 1621942286685818881 Retweet on Twitter 1621942286685818881 Like on Twitter 1621942286685818881 1 Twitter 1621942286685818881
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