I know I shouldn’t harp on, but is anyone else a little envious of those teams for whom January is an opportunity to strengthen their squad? When it’s those against whom you are battling to stay in the Premier League who are making signings it stings a bit. Like the cool kids at school with […]
Column
A Premier League debut to remember for Mitton Junior as City deploy the dark arts
It was a big weekend for the Football Family Mitton. My son, Henry, has already accumulated more first-team experience before his 12th birthday than I had at his age. At this point, I was still seven months away from my City debut. But except for a single appearance in each of the FA and League […]
A chink of light in the darkness, or just a lone win? As ever, it’s the hope that kills…
Unpopular Everton manager Rafa Benitez has been replaced by *Druncan Disorderly* on an interim basis but I can’t say I’m too concerned about that as it’s not my problem. Or yours. Even before kick-off, the *Benitez get out of our club* and *sack the board* banners were unfurled in the Scouse section of the South […]
A win! We only went and done a bloomin’ win! Please let this not be a one-off, lads
Whoa! We’ve not experienced a feeling like that for a while. Felt good, right? It’s all too easy to get carried along on the tide of emotion on days like yesterday and before you know it we’re all proclaiming “WE CAN DO THIS” a few hours after resigning ourselves to City being the worst team […]
MATCH REPORT: City 2, Everton 1
So admit it, you forgot what it feels like! I walked across the streets of New York, on my way to a rendezvous with the New York Canaries in the Football factory, with a feeling of trepidation. Was there any conceivable way that the result would be anything other than another defeat? The team selection […]
GUEST BLOG – ‘A dose of reality…’
It’s guest blog time again and today is the turn of Joseph Smyth, who questions the validity and worthiness of ‘self-financing’. All yours, Joseph… ****** It’s the big question… Can Norwich’s self-funding work model work in the Premier League? At time of writing (pre-Everton), since promotion in the 2018-19 season, City’s Premier League stats are […]
EVERTON PREVIEW: Carrow Road awaits the arrival of some struggling boys in blue
Stand by your beds everybody – the boys in blue are coming round. No, not the Old Bill or the binmen from along the A140 but something even more intimidating. We shortly entertain the slightly less noisy section of a great big footballing City in the North West, aka Everton. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve […]
The fingers are already pointing, but who carries the can for this disastrous season?
And tonight, live from Norwich, it’s The Blame Game. Apologies to Nicholas Parsons but I cannot use the original title of Sale of the Century as Norwich City have very little to sell. So The Blame Game it will have to be. I’ll take an insipid although not entirely inept display against West Ham at […]
A slightly improved performance but still nowhere near good enough from a flat City
And so it goes on… You know it’s bad when you no longer get fired up or angry when City concede a goal. Even worse is when that final whistle goes to signal another defeat and it gets greeted with no more than a shrug. But that my friends is where we are. Or at […]
MATCH REPORT: West Ham 2, City 0
City were dealt yet another blow in the survival stakes last night, losing 2-0 to a comfortable West Ham United at the London Stadium. There was a cautious air of optimism among the travelling Norwich fans after they had seen a 1-0 win over Charlton on Sunday, but the Hammers’ bright start reminded them what […]
All the #NCFC faithful wants is a team that makes us proud and which is competitive
I didn’t go to Charlton on Sunday but was aware in the days leading up to the game that a Delia Out protest was planned by a small group of City fans. This was confirmed when a picture of said group with said banners appeared on Twitter. I trust it’s not being ageist to say […]
WEST HAM PREVIEW: Some buoyant, organised and motivated Irons await
Early in the second half [of Sunday’s game] on Twitter, I began my planning for this piece. @AndyHead02: ‘Oh FFS I’ve got to do the @MFW_NCFC preview for Wednesday off the back of this… Can I just write “West Ham are going to beat us” and leave it at that @Gary_Gowers? #NCFC‘ To which I […]
Cantwell sale would offer Webber a chance at rebuild number two
When things are going well at Carrow Road, Stuart Webber’s quotes and soundbites can bookmark and epitomise the big moments, but when it all goes awry, they often come back to bite him. Perhaps the most quoted one-liner from Webber in recent times is his reference to how Daniel Farke was “sent to war without […]
A weird weekend of FA Cup footie that ultimately earned City a trip to Molineux
That was certainly a weird weekend in terms of the FA Cup Third Round, with apologies to one Louis Theroux. To much laughter and in certain quarters great joy, Wessi’s Cambridge United defeated the Richest Club in the World at St James’s Park, lowly Kidderminster Harriers turned over Reading and Arsenal sported a one-off nameless white […]
A win’s a win, especially in the FA Cup and especially when they’ve been so so rare
It wasn’t pretty by any stretch but if the object of the exercise was to ensure we were in the hat for the next round of the FA Cup, it was mission accomplished. If the purpose of the exercise was to entertain and offer hope going forward… at least we’re in the hat for the […]
FA CUP MATCH REPORT: Charlton 0, City 1
So first an apology. My match reports are usually written within moments of the final whistle. For various reasons, yesterday that wasn’t the case, so the report isn’t quite as in-depth or detailed. Secondly, a bit of perspective. Given the December that we have endured, there were two priorities: First to score a goal, and second […]
CHARLTON PREVIEW: TalkSPORT’s ‘finest’ brace themselves for an upset at The Valley
Do you remember that time when Charlton Athletic FC was the model we were either following or recommended to follow? (I can’t recall which). Either way, it was a plan we ended up following rather too rigorously. Charlton dropped from the Premier League to the Championship and then League One. We missed out the Premier […]
Survival is do-able under the self-financing ethos, but not using this tactical model
The reality has dawned on far more fans than ever before… We have a woefully inappropriate squad for the Championship next season, let alone the Premier League for the second half of this season. Note I chose inappropriate. January is going to be massive for our club’s future. However, my opinion is that under Smith and Shakespeare, […]
Move over Millwall, we’re taking your song
“No-one likes us, we don’t care”. It’s remarkable how the Canaries have become footballing public enemy number one since the beginning of the season. After our less than distinguished start to the campaign, the armchair critics were out in force saying we didn’t deserve to be in the Premier League because we weren’t ‘… giving […]
Suck it up, folks, the ownership debate is a non-starter. Nothing’s about to change
I used to believe the ‘no one else is interested in buying Norwich City FC’ line, but evidence throughout the league belies this. Norwich’s owners are the poorest (bar a couple) of all the known owners’ wealth listed for all four divisions in England. That means almost every other club in English professional football has […]