It may not have been especially pretty but that mattered not one jot.
What mattered was experiencing that winning feeling again.
From top to bottom it was needed. From Delia to match-day steward. From super-fan to part-timer. From NR1 to New Zealand Canaries. That feeling of relief was palpable.
No less than 192 days have elapsed since Tim Krul sent 9000 travelling Canaries into raptures in north London on that crazy March evening after saving Gedson Fernandes’ penalty.
Okay, so it was technically a draw (before the pedants remind me) but it triggered that buzz that only comes from your team winning a game of football. And 192 days is a bloody long time, especially when you consider what’s happened in the world in the intervening period.
So forgive me if perspective goes out of the window a little when poring over what was essentially a scrappy, bog-standard 1-0 away win in the Championship.
It felt like far more.
And, of course, there was the clean sheet. A clean bloody sheet! And we have to go back another five days, to 28th February, for one of those – when Jamal scored the only goal on that Friday night under the lights against Leicester.
A draw wouldn’t have been the end of the world – even if post-match Twitter may have made it feel that way – but there’s something special about nicking a win late on when you’re already preparing for the well-a-point-is-a-point conversations. And City deserved it.
Huddersfield were gallant though and offered a threat greater than that predicted by their fans, but there was always a feeling of the Terriers’ best chance arising from a City cock-up; so used are we to the joys of self-implosion.
But, for once, it didn’t happen. That thin, fragile yellow line in front of Timm Krul that so creaked under Premier League scrutiny was able to stand firm. Josh Koroma, Huddersfield’s lone striker, may have been lively and combative but never once engineered a clear sight of Krul’s goal.
Credit is obviously due to Ben Godfrey and Christoph Zimmerman for re-creating the double act that steered City through many a tricky afternoon in 2018/19, but in front of them was a teenager from Tottenham who may just be the key to the season ahead.
With the ball, Oliver Skipp is neat, tidy and efficient but without it, he appears everything Daniel Farke demands of a defensive midfielder. He out-terrier-ed the Terriers and it was in that engine room where we saw the clearest sign yet of a Farkeball 2.0 emerging.
But… early days.
The other newbie to catch the eye was Xavi Quintillà, who displayed the same attacking instincts of the now-departed Lewis with the added bonus of having a left foot that can open a tin of peas.
Again, early days, but some of the set-piece deliveries were of an ilk that could see him squabbling with the returning Emi Buendia over who gets the set-piece stripes. In open play too, he linked up nicely with Onel Hernandez and looked every inch the able technician you tend to get when recruiting from La Liga.
Kieran Dowell, the third of the day’s starting debutants, had his moments but found the going tough as Huddersfield, after their early flurry, retreated into two banks of four and five. With space at a premium he, along with Teemu Pukki, often found himself crowded out among a sea of blue and white stripes.
Dowell is, however, clearly one who will add a different dynamic to our attacking playing, albeit at the moment he’s one who looks more suited to the traditional 10 role rather than having to drift in from the right.
The goal, when it arrived, was of a Norwich City 2019-20 vintage with Richard Stearman playing the role of a hapless yellow-shirted centre-back, Adam Idah, the ruthless Premier League striker and Teemu Pukki, the wily, selfless veteran who puts team before personal salvation.
And it was joyous.
Idah’s finish was emphatic, but equally impressive was the turn of pace he showed to get into that position in the first place, even if it did almost pale into insignificance against a similar run made by Usain Placheta.
⚽ Adam Idah
— Rewind Norwich City (@RewindNorwich) September 12, 2020
🆚 Huddersfield (A)
📼 2020/21#ncfc #otbc #htafc pic.twitter.com/Hb19GyhyzE
In that short cameo, in which he touched the ball only a handful of times, the young Pole showed enough to suggest there could be thrills and spills aplenty to be had further down the track. And for Idah, it was the denouement of a ten-day spell that has seen him turn from young hopeful into full international and Championship goalscorer.
It was revealed afterwards that Idah had felt the wrath of Farke in the lead-up to the game over his application, or lack of, in training but what better way to respond than with an opening day winner.
So, solid rather than unspectacular, but it was an afternoon that has changed the mood music around the place immeasurably. The margins remain tiny – without the stray Stearman pass we’d probably be mulling over a goalless draw – but to come out on the right side for once made for a rare, angst-free Saturday evening.
The two penalties that never were are now academic and we have to temper our criticism of Championship referees if the trade-off means we no longer have to endure the painful injustice of VAR. That referee Eltringham saw fit to apologise afterwards to Farke for missing both was as unusual as it was refreshing.
I wonder whether or not he apologised to Carlos Corberán for not sending off Todd Cantwell for that stray elbow?
Anyway, it’s done and we won… on opening day… and nothing went wrong.
I could get used to this.
On the Ball City!
Thank you Gary.
I was almost confident that we’d not only win away, but on the first day of the season……then I saw who the ref was to be…….
As you say, yes, he DID miss 2 pretty clear penalties to us, but on any other day, surely Todd would have seen red?
Still; 3 points, a clean sheet (with Ben Gibson still to come in); what’s not to like.
Thank you for the clip; I hadn’t realised just how much ground, nor how quickly Placheta made that distance up!
If Farke told the truth regarding Idah’s training application, what will Jordan Hughill be thinking now??
A most satisfactory start, hopefully a continuation next Saturday!
O T B C
Farke’s post-match interview was interesting. He singled out Gibson, Tettey and Hugill: seasoned pros who might have expected to be on the pitch, but who gave full-hearted and unstinting support from the sidelines.. Hugill, in particular, went straight at the end to congratulate Idah and Pukki.
As you say, early days but what’s not to like?
PS Don’t forget Buendia is still to come into the side.
Hi Gary
A most well win as you say.
Dirty Leeds have now found out that in the Premiership and playing at LIVARPOOL then VAR will always go to them never the visitors so the system is already giving them a second title so it seems.
City could have done with the VAR decisions yesterday just to make life a little easier but then it would have sent odd the Dereham Deco just what was he thinking we will never know.
Huddersfield had their best striker sitting on the bench why clubs do that just because he might or might not get injured just before a transfer is strange surely the player would want to go out on a high by scoring but we will never know if he would have proved to be their game winner.
It was a tidy performance from city with a few highlights but nothing really outstanding so we will need to up the standards V PNE then the Sky game V Bournemouth so a lot to look forward too.
I was asked if I will watch Ipshite or Cricket today there is only one answer to that Blue isn’t my colour and never will be so come on England.
Onwards and upwards
OTBC
Stay safe and stay healthy
Alex, Huddersfield’s best striker was on the bench because he’d tweaked a hamstring in training yesterday, so he was only there for emergencies.
On a separate note, thank you Gary! I see we’ve got the “thumbs down” symbol now! I hope we don’t have to use it very often, and we continue to see plenty of “thumbs up”.
Strangely I’m opting for the ODI too 🙂
You missed a treat. COYB. Though watching the Oz collapse would have been fun.
Well done, City!!
Now for something completely different ..,
Mick Dennis tweets yesterday:-
“If Bielsa is the genius his fawning acolytes among my old media mates believe, shouldn’t he have mastered a bit of English in 27 months?”
This from a former Express hack and ‘fawning acolyte’ of Delia. (Further tweets on this subject from MD are available.) What has Bielsa done to deserve this,? Seems a pretty self-effacing bloke whose obsessive nature re football (that’s not a criticism btw) is part and parcel of his character. He can speak whatever language he likes – his players seem to be able to cope with that.
Thanks Gary, Deciding to stick to Chris Goreham and the delightful Mark Rivers comments. and not sporting the money needed to watch. ( darn Covid) You have put it so well I cannot add much. Master Skipp was outstanding, shame we only have for a season, then a new search begins. Also as good was our new replacement for Lewis (who got a 8 in the Toons ratings) Quintillà. what a dead ball specialist we, have especially corners.
To be honest I did expect a little more given what w were told by the Terriers fans, but a team not firing on all cylinders and still keep a clean sheet and bagging 3 points is the sign of a good team with much better to come.
I am little concerned by Pukki, he still doesn’t look like the old Pukki tearing defences to shreds and scoring for fun. We have to trust that a couple of goals and a few games and he will be firing again. It is not any good dropping a player who is short on form and confidence, where else will he start to gain those , other than playing games.
I would like to see Dowell getting the nod at No10 and switch Toddy out right. just to see the best of him.
The first opening day win since Blackbum under Alex Neil 2016 before that Worthington in 2002, if I am correct.
A typical Championship game, I’ll take another 40 or so of them with that result
Gary, from the brief highlights I saw on Quest last night, I think there’s a clear case for Quintilla to take the corners, and probably a good number of the free kicks. He delivered a good ball into he box, and cleared the first defender, something that Emi has often failed to do. We might even get a few goals from his corners, with the aerial prowess of Godfrey, Zimmerman and Gibson around.
Breaking the run of defeats was vital. You can see that with a decent run of form confidence will grow and this group of players will thrive on confidence in the same way that the team of 2018 did. With the flurry of matches between international breaks and in the build up to Xmas we need a big squad and we might need to grind out a few results. We seem to be reasonably well placed
A 1-0 win. I can get used to that. We might even become boring Norwich, if it continues. We have more gears to go through, hopefully. So all round a good start to the season.
Given the international returnees had little time to get specific team training for this game they played ok. I was surprised that Idah was ahead of Hugill. Bedding in three new signings for this game was sensible. More may well have led to a disjointed performance.
Skipp looks a great signing. Let’s hope he steers clear of injuries and suspensions. Quintilla was steady and his dead ball delivery was spot on. He has to be ahead of Emi for corners. Dowell had a steady start. I was expecting a bit more from him, maybe he was out of position which did not help him.
A better start than our Championship winning season. Now who would believe that.
OTBC
Wow Are you sure you didn’t speed up that clip of Placheta Gary ? Something off a shovel my Dad would say !
A great win even if it wasn’t free flowing football. We needed that big time.
I would add Michael McGovern to that list of top experienced pro’s at the club, it seems he had a word in Adam’s ear. It is great to have these kind of guys around the dressing room.
I must be the only person who didn’t think Todd’s challenge was a red, definitely a yellow as for me his elbow didn’t move away from his body. It was a poor challenge so on another day he could have gone.
As for the penalties, the handball 100% as for Max’s shout, pretty sure it was a pen. I think the ref felt he had passed it on but as we know that’s irrelevant.
So a good start from the boys. Sadly the only thing missing is the fans and it is now looking extremely unlikely there won’t be any this season unless a vaccine is found or this 20 minute spit test works.
Stearman headed Cantwell’s elbow not the other way round. If you want an example of Stearman’s skill at judging things accurately just look at that back pass. Never a red. VAR probably would have sent him off though in super-slo mo just like Leeds gave away a ‘penalty’ when the ball deflected off the poor guy’s leg! Better to rely on a ref and linesmen than technology that has proved utterly hopeless. After not giving the ‘pens’ the ref would probably be reticent to give Cantwell a red unlike some faceless VAR official who has no such qualms about balancing things up. What was a red was the off-the-ball body check by McTominay on Cantwell which was caught on camera but ignored by VAR…unsurprisingly denying us a crack at a semi-final. VAR appears designed for the big clubs to maintain their ascendancy based on its ridiculous usage last season.
I’d have taken a draw to end the losing run, very happy with a win. New signings looked good.
Norwich goal came again thanks to Pukki. Idah scored empty net goal, everyone just should be able to score in chance like that. For young and unexperienced player like Idah scoring goal can be very important for his self confidence. So called football journalist in Norwich seems to keep on claiming that Pukki has self confidence problems about scoring goals. No he hasnt, during the international break Pukki was interviewed and he told that covid break was unexpected and that footballers are humans so covid affect to their life too. He also said that there was obvious lack of scoring chances and that defending a lot as a striker limit attacking energy. He told that its not first time he has period without goal. He said that he knows that he will score every time he plays and his self confidence is same if he scores or not. From Norwich perspective it should not be important if Pukki scores or not, it should be important that Norwich wins. I still hope that Pukki leaves before transfer window gets closed, he deserves it. Norwich should have kept Drmic and let Pukki leave.
Skipp played in his level and he is too good for championship, Dowell is very limited, he is typical british championship player who surely tries and tries his best but lacks overall skills to be better player.
We are 15 games undefeated in the championship. a better stat