It doesn’t take much for the City/Ipswich rivalry to spill over and ignite. Not in the physical sense of course – let’s hope those days are gone – but in its modern-day, slightly less bruising, equivalent: social media. This weekend all it took was the unveiling of a statue, a good crowd and an appearance, […]
Column
A sea of troubles…
Oh dear, oh dear… City, City, City… Sigh. Sadly, the chance for a turnaround was the two games after the two wins when Norwich failed to win either. That’s where the confidence and belief COULD have come from. Now the (very possibly) record-breaking lack of goals is coming to the fore. Close season? £60M appallingly […]
Nobody takes relegation as a given before Christmas but the omens are not good
Night games. I rarely attend them these days due to escalating old age, logistics and in Tuesday’s case a certain apathy towards strolling along Prince of Wales Road around 10pm just ten days before Christmas. In that spirit, I passed my ticket for Villa to MFW regular Don Harold, who kicks off this piece on […]
Another tough ol’ night at the Carra as Gerrard’s Villa cruise past beleaguered City
If Saturday’s performance against Manchester United offered hope that survival is not beyond us, last night’s tame offering against Villa was a salutary reminder of how and why we are rooted at the foot of the Premier League. And why survival probably is beyond us. There is of course mitigation in the form of a […]
MATCH REPORT: City 0, Aston Villa 2
I’ll start tonight’s match report by listing the meaningful efforts on goal by City. Now for the rest of the game. As performances go, it is easy to exhaust the list of superlatives to describe how awful the first half. Shapeless, listless, languid. I could go on. From the kickoff, Villa looked like a side […]
VILLA PREVIEW: Familiar faces for Smith and Buendia but no revenge mission
And so we move on swiftly to the visit of Steven Gerrard’s Aston Villa™, an evening loaded with so many sub-plots it could have been written by David Lynch. Dean Smith is, of course, not the kind of guy to hold any grudges, and Villa is his club, but he’d not be human if this […]
Sometimes 100% isn’t enough for City in the Premier League
If Cristiano Ronaldo asks for a penalty, he gets one. On an evening when Norwich City electrified Carrow Road and produced a performance that any team would be proud of, the sad truth about the dynamic of the Premier League was that this was the only conclusion worth drawing at the final whistle. If the […]
So many referees but the one that really mattered was blinded by the light
England’s England’s Number One, England’s… Number One. In my lifetime we’ve sung that chant for Chris Woods, Rob Green and even John Ruddy. Maybe even for Kevin Keelan too and if we didn’t we should have done. But referee Darren England certainly wasn’t Number One on Saturday evening so there was no need for a […]
A stirring effort from a depleted City but Mr Ronaldo and United have the last laugh
I’ve mentioned plenty of times that the key element of my post-match ritual is a phone call with my dad to dissect what did or didn’t happen at Carrow Road or beyond. He no longer attends games due to his health but the Norwich City fire in his soul still burns and his two penneth […]
MATCH REPORT: City 0, Man Utd 1
Trepidation. That was the overriding emotion of a day where for once, I wasn’t counting the minutes until kick-off. Quite the opposite in fact. The news from the Friday press conference was hardly encouraging, with cagey references to an indeterminate number of players awaiting PR results. Man Utd, rejuvenated under a new manager. It had […]
MAN UTD PREVIEW: Sad but correct managerial changes, and my own dilemma
It’s always special preparing for a City game against one of big boys. Trying to imagine ways we could thwart them – weaknesses we might exploit, ploys we might try, all aided by a fervent Carrow Road crowd. There’s an extra personal challenge for me this time. Because of her various commitments, this will be […]
Now S & S have seen inside Pandora’s Box, what could the January window bring us?
A Pandora’s Box. That’s our squad. Players tactically incompatible with others. Strength missing where strength is needed. Pace absent where it is expected. Players too good to drop, or better than their peers, but played out of position. A squad built for 4-2-3-1 which is no longer played. Some summer recruitment that has raised more […]
The tale of Tottenham – an acute lack of bite and the end of ‘new manager bounce’
New manager bounce. Now that’s a short, sharp phrase to get the old grey matter working. Tottenham Hotspur have enjoyed the effect with the arrival of Antonio Conte as have ourselves with the introduction of Dean Smith and Craig Shakespeare, who are very much a team from what we’ve seen so far. But the Tottenham […]
A painful afternoon in north London as Spurs cruise past our wasteful Canaries
Okay, so it wasn’t the pitiful no-show of Man City or Chelsea proportions, but there was still a horrible inevitability around what unfolded at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium yesterday. An inevitability borne of simply not being quite good enough; of not having enough top-level quality when top-level quality is needed. This was the Norwich City […]
MATCH REPORT: Spurs 3 City 0
Ever had that recurring nightmare? You know the one, where everything is in slow motion and no matter what you do, whenever you have the dream, you cannot affect the outcome. The one that happens every weekend. Daniel Farke struggled to find the right balance between defensive solidity and attacking potency in the latter days […]
Have City filled their Skipp-shaped hole yet?
For most teams going up against a side spearheaded by Son Heung-Min and Harry Kane the threat would be clear, but City fans know that a strong performance tomorrow from a less-heralded Spurs player could render their attack impotent. When Oliver Skipp arrived at Carrow Road the City fanbase had no idea what an impact […]
TOTTENHAM PREVIEW… with Martin & Alex
Through the purest coincidence, MFW regular Alex Bain and I have both had a long-standing *second team* and are aware that many purists would disagree with the entire concept. Fair play to you I say, but sometimes circumstances take over and you have to make the most of the live football you can physically attend. […]
Four games unbeaten, eight points from four and in touch with those above us…
And in the master’s chambers, they gathered for the feast. They stab it with their steely knives, but they just can’t kill the beast** That line from an old song most us will know really well sums up a frustrating night on Tyneside for Dean Smith, his squad and the 1,200 brave souls who went to St […]
A point when it should have been three but City unbeaten in the whole of November
Most of us would have taken a point before a ball had been kicked – goes without saying. It also goes without saying (even though I am) that in end it was two dropped. Ciaran Clark’s ninth-minute brain fade ended up impacting both teams negatively. Newcastle for obvious reasons but City too because, armed with […]
MATCH REPORT: First-team full-backs in focus for impressive City Under-23s
If Dean Smith’s Monday morning reminder of Ozan Kabak, Jacob Sorensen and Pierre Lees-Melou wasn’t enough to highlight the strength in depth at Carrow Road, Bali Mumba’s excellent goal for Norwich City’s under-23s certainly was. As if giving his new boss a less-than-subtle nudge, the City number 26 ignited a contest that ended up being […]