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Doing it the dirty way. Or is that a 'forbidden fruit' style with a price not worth paying?

8th January 2015 By Russell Saunders 9 Comments

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As I write I have no idea if it will be Mike Phelan or Alex Neil or even A N other managing the team on Saturday, but either way there is a very important game to be won.

_____________________________________________________________________________

Reading was rank. Preston was pish. Will Bournemouth be better?

With the day of destiny on the Dorset coast looming large, maybe it’s time to start saying some prayers? Personally, it’s a case of five-a-day for me.

Contrasting City’s form with that of Bournemouth in the first knockings of 2015 is like comparing apples and oranges. Life at the ‘Goldsands’ is a bowl of ‘Cherries’ (unbeaten anywhere since the end of September) while the Canaries have provided a dizzying cocktail of juicy wins and tasty goal fests (raisin’ our hopes) mixed with a selection of bitter and rotten defeats (crushin’ them down again).

The FA Cup effort was frankly awful – we were left feeling melon-cholic.

The stinker at Reading was a sharp reminder that to get anywhere near the top two places, consistency is the key. Despite Bradley’s peach of a goal, it was a shocker of a performance that formed a right prickly pair of defeats within the space of a month to one of the division’s less fancied varieties.

Maybe it was that plum-infused away kit to blame? Not aired since the trip to the Tangerines (victory there is nothing to boast about this season), it’s beginning to look like a jinx. Hopefully we’ll stick to the traditional flavours of yellow and green to tackle the leaders in their own backyard.

Howe’s ripe picks sit at the top of the tree while Neil Adams ponders his future after failing to get his bunch to blossom down in the lower branches of the table. The 1-1 draw earlier in the season brought admiring  glances for an opposition which outplayed us and maybe should have gone away with three points.

However, no one, not even the man from Del Monte, could have imagined that the Cherries would grow into a promotion pushing species. Clearly the climate at the south coast has been a warm and invigorating one compared to the rather frosty and biting one suffered in the east on occasion this season.

I don’t think anyone except for their local rivals would begrudge them a shot of top-tier glory for the very first time. They play the game in the right way and score a shed full of goals and all done on a comparative shoestring of a budget.

The same could be currant-ly said for the club in second place but to openly admit it would be as unpleasant and stomach churning as sucking a lorry load of lemons.

But enough of the opposition though – which Norwich will turn up on Saturday? The bright and breezy one which stood square, toe-to-toe with a rampant Derby or a dull and lifeless one which got right royally run over at the Madjeski?

Many a Canary feels disappointed to be outside of the play-off places in the New Year, let alone a long way distant from the top two. However, the metaphorical slate of a fresh year is clean and we still sit on the cusp of getting back to the ‘big time’.

Casting the mind back to last season’s Championship, Leicester and Burnley pretty much ran away with the automatic places, while QPR did it very ugly and clawed their way up by the skin of their teeth at the expense of a far more deserving Derby. They played party-poopers and maybe that will be our role this season. Would we give a fig if that was to be the case?

Is such a big style-shift a fair compromise for a shot at the Premier League or simply a case of forbidden fruit in the quest for a fool’s paradise?

The top two don’t look like cracking so maybe we will have to do it the ‘QPR way’ – tighten up and hit them with the sucker punch. Gary O’Neil was at the heart of that QPR success, so we have a midfield cog who knows how to get the job done, although he did get sent off in the play-off final!

Phelan (or possibly Neil) now has to galvanise the troops and ensure no further slip ups. A ‘run’ is what most definitely is needed to be put together over the second half of winter and into spring. We have a squad full of second tier experience – there will be little excuse for falling short.

Of course, a little bit of extra spice has been sprinkled on the season with the return of Chris Hughton to the fray at Brighton. Still labeled as a thoroughly ‘bad apple’ from his time with us, there seem to be plenty of sour grapes being spat at his appointment.

He’ll have had plenty of time to bed down in his new job before facing his former charges on April 3rd. More pressing is the Seagulls clash with Ipswich at the end of this month. If Hughton can engineer a win from that one, he may just regain some favour in Norfolk?

As for our boys on Saturday, the defence has to cut out the errors, the midfield has to throttle the supply and threat from the Cherries midfield and ideally someone in a yellow and green shirt (not plum please) will pop up to nick a winner.

It might sound ugly but we’d all go… bananas if it happens.


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Filed Under: Column, Russell Saunders

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Comments

  1. Jim Davies says

    8th January 2015 at 8:43 am

    I think you’ve overdone the fruit puns. They’re driving me nuts!

    Reply
  2. Stewart Lewis says

    8th January 2015 at 9:15 am

    Russ: As usual, it’s fun to see the fruits of your labours.

    Coming from behind to win promotion needn’t be ugly. QPR were extremely fortunate to go up last year, but plenty have gone into the playoffs with momentum and deservedly claimed the third place.

    If it’s Alex Neil, that would be a bold and exciting appointment. Hopefully those who bemoaned the list of ‘usual suspects’ won’t also write off someone from outside it. Of course it would be a big step up, not only to a Championship club but one whose fans expect nothing less than immediate promotion. But he’ll be well aware of that, and if he really is ‘a natural’ then let’s prepare ourselves for an exciting ride and do whatever we can to help. OTBC

    Reply
  3. Russell S. says

    8th January 2015 at 11:32 am

    *Jim – sorry! I didn’t mean to upset the apple cart. Nuts?..hmm, now there’s an idea.
    *Stewart – If it’s to be AN to replace NA, you have to feel for MP being usurped for the job by, and let’s be frank, someone that 99.9% of footy fans haven’t heard of before. Whoever it is, momentum is the key for a push to the playoffs. My comparison with QPR was because they had the ‘best squad’ label last season and only just got up behind two less fancied teams.

    Reply
  4. Stewart Lewis says

    8th January 2015 at 3:29 pm

    Russ (3): fair points (although there are mixed reports of MP’s stance – hopefully we’ll learn more soon). Shouldn’t forget we’re not the only ones thinking we have the strongest squad in the league – Fulham, Cardiff and Derby, to name but three.

    Still, the proof of the fruit crumble…

    Reply
  5. Barynorw says

    8th January 2015 at 11:53 pm

    Grant, Roeder, then part of the inner circle Bryan Gunn (no CV), then the now-despised Lambert. Follow that with no track-record Hughton – dearly loved at Newcastle (Oh ah!).

    Then blow me down we go back to the inner -circle with Neil Adams – lovely man, but no Premier League or even Div. 2 CV. It was a guaranteed failure, doing the same thing and expecting different results – definition of madness?

    So now Mr Genius Mac&Ally has come up with a water diviner’s guess and plumped for a 33-year old player manager from Hamilton Accies. This will have to be the most inspired selection since Mr Longson signed Clough or Mr Watling took on the revered Archie Macaulay. As they say in Scotland – “i hae ma doobts!”

    And where does Phelan figure in all of this? if he doesn’t then it’s confirmed – they haven’t had a clue as to what to do since that dire press conference when it was obvious that Adams was a dead man walking….

    Reply
  6. Russell S. says

    9th January 2015 at 9:59 am

    *Barynorw – far from confirmed at this point but AN could be DM’s ‘last stand’? If he is appointed and it goes wrong, the ‘Lambert credit’ will have been all but gone. I don’t quite share your “we’re all dooomed” outlook but the club/DM sits on a very dicey cusp.
    I was trying to focus away from the management question (although clearly the hot topic) and keep the eye on the ball for Saturday’s massive test on the pitch – hopefully MP has been doing just that.

    Reply
  7. Stewart Lewis says

    9th January 2015 at 10:07 am

    Barynorw (5): perhaps we should take heart form the fact that this isn’t the Norwich Board which hired Grant, Roeder or Gunn. It’s actually the same Board – with the same leading personality – which hired Paul Lambert.

    Reply
  8. victor says

    9th January 2015 at 4:31 pm

    All the debate on the rights& wrongs ,why’s & when’s of would be managers & the role of the board( mainly DM ) are missing the main point Before DM arrived we were heading for oblivion The wrong end of Div3 ( sorry Lge 1) ,no money ,huge debts & a ‘poor millionaires ‘ as ‘the owner’. Our only salvation was that we could still attract 20,000+ into Carrow Road. Since then we have had 2 promotions , 3 yrs inPL during in which time the debts were cleared& the squad ‘improved’. Even if we don’t get back to the “promised land” of the PL this season I think we should have every reason to be optimistic for the future. That cannot be said for many clubs out side the ” Big six”or so eg Leeds Wolves & some little team that we get 6pts off every season OTBC

    Reply
  9. Bartynorw says

    9th January 2015 at 8:03 pm

    Victor – this is all well and good i.e. what she’s done for us all, but I’m talking about the future. Imagine working at a place where someone with far less experience than you comes in to be your boss. Very awkward dynamics from the off. In that bizarre press conference MP seemed to be totally at ease with himself (arrogance or supreme self-confidence – take your pick). Maybe some of the Board didn’t take to him. Strange to bring him in and less than 3 months later do this. As I intimated it’s either an inspired choice or just plain dysfunctional logic, trying to emulate Bournemouth with their inspired choice?
    Sorry about the typo of my nom de plume – late last night and just wanted to rant……

    Reply

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