Morale has been so low around Norwich City Football Club recently that I didn’t even go to the Boxing Day game against Arsenal – I was pretty scathing in my latest column in the paper, too. Six straight defeats, no goals for more than nine hours, rock bottom of the league – I didn’t head to Carrow Road today in a particularly optimistic mood.

Wonders will never cease, however, and a couple of crazy minutes in the first half followed by a tense and scrappy second half brought the result of Norwich 2-1 Everton. We won a game of football! So what have we learnt?

Adam Idah may have found a role in this team

I’ll be honest, I’ve never really rated Adam Idah. He doesn’t score enough goals for me and he gets knocked off the ball too easily. But today might just be a turning point for him. Instead of playing as an out-and-out striker, he played in a position behind Teemu Pukki and it really seemed to suit him. His hold up play was as good as I’ve seen it, he helped the midfield out when they needed it and when his chance came he took it well for his first Premier League goal. One swallow does not make a summer, but this is definitely worth persisting with.

Let’s not lower ourselves to time wasting, please

I get it. Norwich hadn’t won for such a long time in the league that they’ve sort of forgotten how to do it. In the rare situation of having a lead to protect, they seemed to start wasting as much time as possible from a ludicrously early point in the second half. When Richarlison scored a rather excellent overhead kick to make it 2-1, we went into overdrive with the running down of the clock.

Some fans will lap this up, as so many teams have done it to us, they will have loved seeing Norwich do it to someone else. But I’d rather we didn’t lower ourselves to that level. I would prefer the team to have the belief that they can see a game out properly. The feigning of injuries made for a scrappy game.

Watford away is a massive game

As the clock ticked slowly through the seven minutes of added time, it felt like a crucial point in Norwich’s season – if they were to concede and only come away with a point, it would be a crushing blow that might well have put the final nail in the coffin. By seeing it out and getting the three points, suddenly the relegation battle is not over and with Watford and Newcastle drawing today our next game could see us move out of the bottom three.

Deliciously, our next game is at Watford, live on TV on Friday night. There’s every chance we’ll lose, but… you never know. It’s the hope that kills you.