That turned out better than expected. And to have hooked Piers Morgan in the process was a huge, glorious bonus.
That Ryan Bennett’s ‘did he or didn’t he’ was the Gooners’ biggest talking point of the afternoon spoke volumes of City’s display of grit and organisation which came laced with a sprinkling of quality.
And it’s the latter of those three qualities that marked this performance apart from the narrow defeats at the Etihad and Stamford Bridge.
Along with the obdurate defending and the respective banks of four and five that shuffled efficiently from side-to-side there was a verve, zip and intent about City’s attacking play that since Alex Neil’s emergence as the Pragmatic One has been virtually unseen.
At least there was for the final hour. Prior to the Arsenal goal Neil’s men struggled to strike that difficult balance between absorbing pressure while still carrying a threat on the break, but having gone behind, and tasked with having to create something in order to get something out of the game, they prospered.
All too typically however, Mesut Özil’s goal, while clinical in its creation and execution, was borne of a catalogue of errors – Martin Olsson’s back-pass to John Ruddy’s ‘wrong’ foot, Ruddy’s awful kick and Gary O’Neil’s mis-control – and it seems regardless of Alex’s back-four permutation the ricks continue.
Until they desist, City’s opposition of the day will invariably fancy their chances.
But it’d be wrong to focus on what went wrong because once the heads had been cleared there was so much more that went right.
As ever, Tuesday morning’s debrief will deal with areas that need improvement but Team Neil deserves the plaudits for formulating a plan that carried City to within a palm of Petr Cech’s glove from a famous win. And alongside the finely honed plan they should also be lauded for a brave team selection.
The audible cry of “what the f—?” at 3:15 could have been for any number of things, and my money was on the recall of Messrs Whittaker and Russell Martin. But as it transpired it was the inclusion of Lewis Grabban as the lone striker that had provoked the collective expletive.
Yet, for all the question marks (and expletives), it was ultimately a selection that was justified. Wholly justified.
Alex sees something in Grabban that, it appears, 90 per cent of fans do not. He likes the way he plays the lone striker role. He likes the fact he has a silky first touch. And he likes the way his clever runs offer options to the Bradys and the Hoolahans.
And, but for him going walkabouts to Rotherham Central while, en route, hurling toys from his pram, I suspect he would have had plenty of game time. The manager is a fan – no question.
So when the mandatory report analysing Arsenal’s playing style landed on his desk last Monday morning and identified the need of a striker who can hold the ball up he turned to the best man for the job – Grabban.
It wasn’t a popular decision and, in addition to the collective gasp, my pre-match stroll down King Street was punctuated by folk deriding the decision.
“How come he pick him and dun’t give ol’ Lafferty a chance? Wos he dun wrong?”
But it was the right decision, even if those same good folk of King Street were waiting throughout to pounce on Grabban’s every mis-placed pass and are probably still refusing to accept that Alex called it right.
Ironically, the horses for courses approach dictates that if, next Saturday, a new plan requires someone to get in the faces of Watford’s central defenders Grabban may find himself out of the team. Such is life under Sir Alex. I’m not expecting to hear ‘Norwich are unchanged’ between now and next May.
Yet there are one or two who right now are ‘un-droppable’, the most obvious being Robbie Brady whose season continues apace on an upward curve. With Martin Olsson also finding his best form City are now strong both defensively and offensively down the left side right and, in truth, the injured Matt Jarvis has barely been missed.
In fact, minus the services of Jarvis, the need to deploy Brady in a more advanced role has proved to be a bonus all round, and his ability to offer protection to Olsson and support for the lone striker was a feature of his man-of-the-match performance yesterday.
And to think many of us scoffed at £7 million.
Andre Wisdom was another to catch the eye yesterday and gave us undoubtedly his best performance in a City shirt; the back-four, even with the ongoing desire to self-destruct, beginning to have a more solid, consistent look and feel to it.
In midfield Gary O’Neil and Graham Dorrans did as their manager requested and, particularly in the second half, gave a more than passable impersonation of Messrs Cazorla and Flamini; the former in particular using every bit of Premier League nous to organise, cajole and inspire those around him.
So, only a point but still a performance to be proud of. And one that if replicated through December and January could yet see us keep our heads above water – even if few outside the Canary Nation believe us capable.
And further confirmation that we’re in safe hands.
As a fellow River-Ender reminded me as we departed the stadium: “Alex is the man with the plan”.
Well said Phil.
Beautifully summed up Gary, I must admit that I was more than a bit puzzled by the Grabban decision, I hope I can say that I’ll never doubt AN’s decisions again, but I probably will.
I have to confess I couldn’t resist the opportunity to tweet Mr Morgan. I asked him if he ever tires of making himself look a right tosser! Needless to say, I’ve received no reply yet!
OTBC IANWT
Shame on the Canary Caller and probably others citing Grabban as lazy and crying “Where is he?” when the ball goes forward. Watch the game again and you’ll see he was tasked with shadowing Cazorla most of the time.
Jon B says that Grabban was “tasked with shadowing Carzola”. There’s a world of difference between “shadowing” and putting pressure on a player, but even so, I didn’t see much evidence of him doing either. In fact, until he scored he looked disinterested for most of the time, wandering about between the two Arsenal central defenders, but not closing them down effectively. Maybe we should get Grant Holt back to five him some lessons in unsettling defenders.
As for Piers Moron, who cares what he thinks? Ryan Bennett shouldn’t have wasted a tweet on him.
I like to refer to him by his proper tag of ‘disgraced former newspaper editor’ Piers Morgan.
A point off Arsenal – not even Leicester managed that.
No one else in Norwich would have predicted the starting line up – definitely time to trust Alex to do the job and not continually push personal favourites or knock personal ‘villains’ from the online sidelines.
There are plenty out there not keen to forgive and forget Grabban’s misdemeanours. The fact that the boss picked him for such a big game and sounded very pleased with his performance still won’t change their intolerant mind set.
A win at Watford would be an especially sweet follow up.
Every manager has favourites that fans struggle to appreciate. But even Alex Neil himself has admitted he doesnt always get it right. He would probably still be persisting with Russell Martin at centre back if he had not been unavailable. If Ruddy gets injured or sent off/suspended we shall have the opportunity to assess his preference in the Ruddy/Rudd debate.
I remember a certain W. Hoolahan quite publicly wanting to leave the club not so long ago. Redemption is only ever a few decent performances away.
An enjoyable read, as ever, Gary. An encouraging performance from the boys as well.
Yes the goal conceded was disappointing but having watched Norwich go toe to toe with Arsenal I can only be pleased. Sure we started a little slow but for very large chunks we dominated with swift counter attacking, effective passing and really incisive play, in my opinion this was as good a Norwich performance in a long time. If we keep this intensity and effectiveness we’ll do fine. This season is going to be tight at the bottom we’ve got to stay up and I hope, think we have a great chance
OTBC
Another good performance against a top team; yet again Alex Neil shows that unlike most of his predecessors, including Lambert, he can set a team up for a particular game without the players looking like strangers.
But for al that it’s 1 point from 9 against them, 2 from 12 including the Liverpool game. The trouble is we only took 1 points from the 4 games against WHU, WBA, Newcastle and Leicester.
There’s 3 tough away fixtures in December – Saturday’s game looks the easiest, but it’s still tricky. Plus Everton in town – and with them you never know what to expect. Might get 3 points, or we might just get outclassed.
After that we MUST grab some points against the likes of Villa, Southampton, Bournemouth and Stoke or else it really will start to look difficult.
So that’s the challenge isn’t it? Turn strong back-to-the-wall performances into dominant front-foot ones and start picking up points off the mid-table and bottom clubs. Perhaps the best thing about Neil is that he is already a very good manager, yet he’s still learning. I have every confidence that he will get us where we want to be.
@ Jim Davies
I thought it was quite clear from the outset that Grabban’s job was not to chase Mertersacker and the other central defender (not even gonna try to spell that one), but rather prevent their creative midfielders from receiving the ball.
His plan, which worked brilliantly, was cut off the route to Carzola & Co, leaving them to resort to playing the ball long, over the midfield. This, I thought, worked well.
Genius plan, well executed!