We’ve long established that football is a daft game. Last night was just further confirmation.
After having played some good stuff at times over the last three game, which yielded a single point, last night was disjointed and bitty yet enough to secure City their first three points of the season and a clean sheet.
In his post-match mumblings, our ex, Alex Nel, was probably right to feel a little hard done by and confirmed that his game plan – to frustrate the Canaries and let a tetchy Carrow Road crowd do the rest – was not a millions miles away from earning them the win.
Indeed, if Darnell Fisher hadn’t blazed over with the goal at his mercy in the first half and if Callum Robinson’s shot had gone in off the underside of the bar instead of bouncing to safety in the second, it would have induced hand-wringing aplenty with added angst and anger.
But, much to Alex’s understandable annoyance, unlike Saturday, last night City came out on the right side of the ifs. Ultimately, they were overdue some good fortune.
Whether this will provide just some light relief before returning to more Championship grind or if it’s the kick-start to City’s season we’ve all been waiting for will only become apparent in the weeks to come, but regardless it was a result, if not a performance, to savour.
That for 80 minutes City laboured mattered not one iota when referee Gavin Ward blew his whistle for the final time 15 minutes later, and the relief around the old place was palpable. The mood was buoyant – unlike the second-half moment when a cacophony of boos greeted another cumbersome touch from Alex Tettey.
But it says something when the opposition manager – as Neil confirmed afterwards – looks to use a negative Carrow Road crowd as a mechanism to inspire his team and as a source of inspiration for them.
We need to do better too.
The moaning and groaning in the River End as City persevere with that “tippy-tappy cr@p” is starting to get more than a little bit tiring, especially given that Daniel Farke and Stuart Webber clearly have it embedded as the new ‘Norwich way’.
It’s not about to change. That’s how they will play. It will be too slow at times but it will get worked patiently through then thirds, and it will involve the centre-backs passing it between themselves until Alex Tettey, Mo Leitner or whoever else may slot into those roles can work an angle so the ball can be shifted in a forward direction.
Sometimes that angle won’t be there, and they’ll roll it back to Tim Krul, and no matter how loud you shout, “GET IT FORWARD!”, they’ll do everything they can to resist hoofing it aimlessly in the direction of Jordan Rhodes.
Sometimes this method will work, sometimes it won’t, but that’s the style of choice and until Stuart Webber is no longer of this parish (which hopefully will not be a thing for some time), that’s how it is going to be.
*rant over*
That’s not to say there wasn’t stuff to cause anxiety and for those 80 minutes it was nervy and without flow, but City did always look as if they had a goal in them, mainly through the energy, pace and hustle and bustle of Onel Hernandez.
His linking up with the fit-again Jamal Lewis – whose return has added balance to the side – was City’s main source of threat in the first half; the best chance being the one he teed up for Leitner just before the interval, which was skied into the River End.
The second half threatened to meander in much the same way as the first but was ignited by the introduction of Emi Buendia on 66 minutes for his first taste of Championship football. In the words of my uncle, he “lit the place up”.
A trick here, a dropped shoulder there, the little Argentinian offered something different and did enough in just under half an hour to suggest, given time, he can add some genuine potency to City’s attack.
Ironically, given all the talk of the “tippy-tappy cr@p”, it was a sweeping cross-field pass from Christoph Zimmermann – on for the stricken Ivo Pinto – that finally unlocked the Preston door, but not before some nice control, a trick and a nicely weighted pass from Lewis had given Teemu Pukki a sight of goal.
The finnish from the Finn ( 😉 ) with his ‘wrong’ foot was unerring, and was another reminder of his knack of finding the back of the net. While others tense up in front of goal, Pukki is at his most relaxed – a handy trait.
That Tettey was able to end his own horror show with an absolute corker of a volley was an unlikely, but hugely welcome, twist to what could have been another awkward evening. Credit to the Norwegian though for the self-deprecating way he appraised his night’s work and made little of what was a brilliant strike.
So, in the end it was a good one, even though for long spells it didn’t feel like it. And now we face Leeds and their 50,000 strong travelling support in rather better fettle than we began last night.
Be happy.
Did you hear Gary Neville on Sky talking about managing? He was discussing playing out from the back as a style preferred by “modern” coaches and when Jamie “Scouser” said they should change it GN said the one thing he learned managing Valencia was that once you have asked and coached players in one style don’t then try to change it, He did and the players couldn’t respond.
Well I thought his views were interesting!
A fair assessment – play poorly and win. Not that Preston were any great shakes either.
I thought Lewis and Hernandez had times when they were closing down each other’s space – compacting play as a consequence. The lack of game time together is probably a major contributing factor; but I’m looking forward to that partnership developing.
Ignoring the apparent negativity of playing a frustrating Square game in your own box, what is apparent to me is that the Championship opposition are successful against a young lightweight Norwich because of sheer size and physical effort and aggression.
They will build a wall across the halfway line, brutally win the 50/50 balls, and knock us over on the breakaway
It happened last season, and I can see it happening this.
The good thing we have 2 or 3 potential goal scorers, not just James Maddison
I only saw the highlights on Quest (which seems and odd channel to have them; my children would say I think it’s odd because I’m as old as Noah’s dog), which didn’t provide much in the way of analytical information. The reports I have read and been told by my mate Richard pretty much concur with Gary’s-I think the mixed bag of performances and results will be the theme to the season.
Like Gary, I am looking forward to the 50000 (surely it’s 60000) Leeds fans coming on Saturday. Perhaps their team won’t be up for it too much, what with them having already secured promotion and the pink walls and everything.
Not an advert for the Championship.
For all the talk of the league’s physicality, the times when Preston’s players roughed up our players generally led to a free-kick, which meant we could put a ball into the box, and we hadn’t been looking like doing that at any stage in the lead-up to any of those fouls.
I’ve always been an advocate of passing football. They say the two worst things in life are not getting what you want and getting what you want.
Saturday v Leeds will be the acid test for City and I believe define how our season pans out. Big characters and performances required. The Championship looks especially tough this term plenty of sides with massive expectations. Sadly, I think we are lightweight but 6 points from our next two games and how happy will we all be!
All fair comment. The performance last night was our least fluent so far, perhaps reflecting a dent to our confidence from the first three results.
However, we did “tough it out”, with obvious determination to cut out the individual errors. While tight, it WAS a deserved win against well-organised opposition.
Not sure Jordan Rhodes would agree with Ben K’s assertion that “the times when Preston’s players roughed up our players generally led to a free kick”. He must be black-and-blue this morning, and got little protection. But Rhodes is clearly a team player – he never stopped challenging, and was beaming as he left the pitch as if he’d scored a hat-trick.
Just one point, putting on my tin hat. Until the goals, every time we created danger it was through the patient passing. Eventually we’d find Leitner in space and he played the penetrating ball. In contrast, when we tried to force it instead of being patient, we always lost the ball.
Agree 100% with your final paragraph Stew. Alas, I fear Leitner’s fate has already been decided by some, who clearly despise his wish to pick a pass and not run around for 90 mins like a headless chicken.
I’d be interested in the comparison of the “pass completion” rates of Leitner to, say, Wes?
*Dons full body armour
Stewart, your assertion that ‘every time we created danger it was through the patient passing’ is reasonable as far as the first 80 minutes. But, two points to make in response, concerning the first 80 minutes: firstly, that’s just about all we did, so there was barely any chance of anything else creating an opportunity. Secondly, we barely created any opportunities. Another point to make would be that neither of goals came by way of the patient passing.
I agree that Leitner is a decent player, but he didn’t have a decent game last night, but for one or two passes.
Agree with some of that. My point was that Preston, always a well-organised team tough to create chances against, came (by their own admission) with a special resolve to frustrate and stifle us. Yet we did get thought them a few times in the first 80 minutes – inevitably through patience and a quality ball from Leitner,
As Preston tired in the last 15 minutes, we were able to be much more direct.
No mention of the impact Zimmerman had on the game, along with the change of shape. He is an immense player and he made some huge tackles in that last 15 mins. Not to mention seeing that pass that set up Pukki’s goal.
But mostly, as a team we look so much more fluid with three at the back. We played a very flat 4-4-2 for most of last night and it gave our defenders nothing to pass out to. Our full backs, used to being ‘bombers-on’ kept get tangled up with our wingers. Leitner can’t find space. All of a sudden Zimbo comes on, Buendia attacks, the shape becomes fluid and we look a million times better. I don’t understand why Farke is forcing a creative squad into a a box when we know that 3-5-2 will suit our players so much better, especially now we have Rhodes and Pukki up front.
My bad – yes, Zimmo did have an impact, as did the change to three at the back.
Not a criticism – more that the acres of coverage elsewhere have ignored it
I wonder what the biggest bearing on this result and our performance is? Obviously each and every game requires two teams to contest the match. The best teams can impose their game on the oposition and generally dictate the tempo of the match and what ever the opposition do to try to counter it, they generally seem to find a way.
With our slow building through the phases, this is I think what Farke aims for, the trouble in my view is that whilst that is desirable, we are at least for now not up to it. I think the opposition have had a far bigger say in proceedings.. they may allow us to play keep ball at times but stay organised infront of us and too many times we end up going no where and even giving the ball away in dangerous areas.
Last night it seems Neil had come to spoil and let the crowd get on top of us and try to pinch a goal. For 80 minutes it had worked a charm and with more composed finishing maybe they would have left with 3 pts. With his more negative tactics it did give our defence a slightly easier night, were they better or less challenged in getting the clean sheet? For those 80 minutes we barely registered any shots on goal, let alone on target, so much like last season when our defence had been hailed as sorted, our so far lauded attack this season was utterly blunted by an average side. with a degree of organisation (This was an Alex Neil defence so I can’t believe it could actually be described as good!) But too often we are bullied off the ball, we also generally lack the craft to play around a side. If they come with a more ambitious attitude than Preston, they all seem to score past us.
Early days and of course you could say our patient play did eventually open up Preston, job done! but I think we might venture hoping for a little more especially at home.
Does anyone else think we dictate play? We do in so much as we keep the ball for long spells amoungst our back 5. But we don’t challenge our oppo’s shape enough, Only Henandez does with his pace.
Once again it seemed we did better when we had less of the ball and mixed it up a little. In the first half I thinkthe BBC had us down as having 59% possession, that dropped to 51% by the finish. Last season too we seemed to be better with having the ball less, does our exceedingly slow laboured build up give the opposition too much time to organise still?
Bah!
Hi Gary
a good analysis of ladt nights game watched it via sky as they showed all the Championship game’s.
Must say I have seen such a dull first half for a very long time neither team seem to want to win it or showed any real passion, Preston were trying the strong arm stuff and generally the Ref was spot on with his decisions.
Tettey was luck not to be pulled at half time he was so off the pace last night but the whole team looked like they were strangers to each other and the ball, but in the end a just result for the ladt 20 mins of entertainment.
I hope a clean sheet will help Kruls confidence and he looked as if he is starting to show slowly how good he can be.
To be fair to the crowd, i thought their appreciation of Leitner when he came off near the end was both fulsome and equally well received by the player. I was also pleased with the way he harassed and put in a tackle. He wanted it and it showed.
Agreed Richard … although I did wonder at the time if it was for the arrival of Trybull. I do fear there are some who have already made their decision on Leitner as he’s “too lightweight”, ignoring the fact he’s one of the few in the squad with an eye for a pass.
In my opinion Leitner should be the first name on the team sheet because he is integral to the way Farke wants to play. Gary is right, the patient, possession football is here to stay and for it to be effective it requires players with the technical ability Leitner possesses, Trybull is another example. Quite often single touch passing is needed (something Wes used to specialise in), a difficult skill that only certain players in the squad are capable of. Last night I don’t believe the passing was sharp enough to work effectively and ultimately it resulted in a very poor performance. In my view we must persevere with Lietner, Trybull and co in the hope they can deliver Farkes dream. We have no other choice.
This is spot on – Tetts is not a player to have on his own in that position if we want to release players. Trybull is great at tackle, pass, tackle, pass – which would give Leitner the service he needs.
Seeing brief highlights this morning 2 things struck me.
One, Hernandez had a chance to shoot himself before hesitating and setting up Leitner.
Two, yes Tettey gave the ball away cheaply – but not, as I assumed in front of his own penalty area. The reports fail to mention the amount of ground Robinson had to cover before getting a shot in. Pinto failed to get an effective tackle in, no centreback read it quick enough to get across and block. In fact the one person busting a gut to recover the situation was Tettey himself.
Anyway, we won the sort of game we were struggling with last year so at least there’s some hint of progress. Saturday is likely to be more like the WBA game, can’t see Leeds setting out to frustrate in the way PNE clearly did. Whether we can prevail against a decent team in a more open game remains to be seen.
A win is a win no matter how it is achieved.
Tettey was honest enough to admit he was happy with his performance last night and not to many players will openly do that, he also has player in all the games so far without a full preseason so it wss going to catch up sometime.
Lets look forward to Dirty Leeds on Saturday and dent their aspirations for the season.
Well Gary it seems a little ironic that you choose to have a rant at those fans who were moaning at the “tippy tappy crap football” as unlike you they don’t have a platform to air their views so the only way I guess is at the game,it’s what fans have done ever since I’ve been going to Carrow Rd and thats back in seventies.
The football last night from an entertainment perspective was awful, as Hucks put it on Twitter “the two Norwich players who have touched it the most are the centre backs” and Dean Ashton said “i wouldn’t have liked to have played in this side” so it’s not just us uneducated fans who are unimpressed.Somebody said that that it’s better to keep passing across our own box than hump it forward and lose possession….I agree but there is a middle ground where we mix it up and play forward quicker instead of the turgid to me to you back to me bore fest….the last 10 minutes as an example and look what happened
Martin
Martin, the moaning about the “tippy tappy crap” irked me because it was as though it came as a surprise. Love it or hate it (lots of folk in the River End hate it) it’s how City play now and how they will continue to play. I agree it needs to be done quicker – I’m sure Farke knows that too – and they do need to mix it up, but those wanting it hoofed forward are simply going to be disappointed EVERY single week.
The man behind me spent the entire 90 mins whining. Didn’t applaud once. Even when we scored he complained that it wouldn’t make up for the previous 80 mins. “We have a right to watch some football”, he kept saying.
Blimey… some people hate it when things go well.
Was that the same ‘knowledgeable’ Dean Ashton who wondered how many games Hoolihan would play this season? https://www.express.co.uk/sport/football/996920/Norwich-transfer-news-Championship-Dean-Ashton
Ho, Ho! Yes, indeed – Sat 4 August, Ashton: “Wes Hoolahan is not necessarily going to play every game, missing James Maddison and issues with Oliveira – a lot of hopes rest on Jordan Rhodes.”
Well done, your point is what? that a ex pro knows nothing about football because of that?
To be fair Martin, I don’t disagree with the thrust of your comment and of course, Hucks and Dean Ashton know far more than I. My point (badly made) was that this system is here to stay, however irate me, you, the River End, ex-pros and Uncle Tom Cobbley get about it. They clearly haven’t got it nailed yet, but I’d prefer to see them work with it, try and perfect it, rather than change style. I accept too it needs to be ‘mixed up’ more.
Fair enough Gary,my comment about ex pros was aimed at Jill
To many pundits don’t do any research before opening their mouths.
Murray last night stated city didn’t deserve any points from the Birmingham game and said they were out played in all league games so far, I am not into stats but they would prove him wrong.
Aston seems to like to criticise vity at every opportunity he gets.
I do enjoy reading Gary’s analysis of each match and tend to find myself agreeing with his summaries. I also enjoy the contributions from everyone else. A much more balanced debate than in many of the forums and phone ins. Having watched the West Brom game and last nights I struggled to know which I appreciated more. The West Brom match was great entertainment with Norwich playing really well in the first half and Leitner showing what a quality player he is. His weight of pass especially when played first time is a delight to watch. Of course it was a good performance but we lost. Last night was a poor performance but we won. There is no doubt I enjoyed the last 15 minutes and the goals but the entertainment level was low. Obviously we all want the entertainment and result but Man City or Liverpool we are not. I agree with the comments about being lightweight. So many sides are packed with tall muscular midfielders who try to run the game through their physicality. Norwich have rarely over the years adopted that approach relying on smaller skilful players to control a game. Having said that I thought our midfield was poor last night. Marshall looked no more comfortable on the right side of midfield that he did at right back. Enough has been said about Tettey and Leitner couldn’t really get in the game other than a couple of good passes. I think Leitner’s abilities are better suited further forward where he can use his technical ability, speed of thought and one touch passing to feed Pukki, Hernandez and Rhodes. I like Tettey for his effort and commitment but he is the epitome of of our sideways and backwards passing. His role is really to get the ball and give it to someone else. I hope that Trybull returns soon to the side and either Thompson or Godfrey is given a chance alongside him. We might then see the ball moved forward a bit more quickly.
Comments have been made about the tippy tappy crap. I have to say that I was fed up with the long hopeful ball played up in the air to Rhodes who was regularly beaten to it or fouled despite his continuous effort. Just goes to show that we all see it differently and long may that be the case. The joy of football.
Very good comment Graham (and thanks). As you say, the midfield didn’t function particularly well last night and, yes, unfortunately, Marshall was unable to have the impact further forward than we had all hoped. Still early days hopefully.
(Hope you’re well btw)
My thoughts entirely Graham. We need people who can pass and younger legs in midfield.
Our movement is terrible at the moment.
At times it looks like the opposition has a couple of extra players.y