LEE PAYNE

Tag: premier

  • My highlights of sport in 2023

    It’s hard to believe, but we are nearing the end of another year. Here are some of my highlights from watching sport in 2023.

    Football

    Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

    This year has been one to forget for Norwich City. In fact, it’s been the club’s worst year since… well, last year. David Wagner was appointed as head coach in the first week of January, and I had a good deal of optimism about him, although I would have been optimistic about anyone after the horrors of Dean Smith. He started well, too, with a fitter squad banging in the goals – most notably in a 4-2 win at Coventry where they were 3-0 up after 18 minutes. Looking a good bet for the play-offs, the Canaries faded away badly, failing to win any of their last six games. The talisman that was Teemu Pukki played his final game for the club on the last day of the season at home to Blackpool; when he was substituted in the second half most of the crowd left well before the conclusion of the 1-0 defeat.

    A decent start to 2023-24 saw Norwich get three wins and a draw from their first four games (the draw being an incredible 4-4 at Southampton) but defeat at Rotherham and a serious injury to striker Josh Sargent set things on a negative course. Now, the club’s fans are divided, with occasional boos accompanying the frustrated sighs in the stands. Many want Wagner to be sacked, but the sporting director Stuart Webber has been the one to depart instead. Having announced that he would be leaving the club in June, there was a potential for him to remain in his post until March next year, but he left in November.

    Away from Norwich, Manchester City became only the second English club to win the treble of Premier League, FA Cup and the Champions League in the same season – although the other team to do it were their cross-city rivals United, back in 1999. Erling Haaland had been brought in to push City to the next level and boy, did he deliver. The Norwegian scored an incredible 36 league goals in his debut season. The celebrations after the 1-0 win against Inter Milan in the Champions League final were so raucous that Jack Grealish is probably still nursing his hangover.

    England’s women made it all the way to the final of the World Cup, just a year after so memorably winning the Euros on home soil. They were narrowly beaten by Spain in Sydney, but their victory was overshadowed somewhat by the controversy over the non-consensual kiss from the chief of the Spanish FA, Luis Rubiales, on the lips of captain Jenni Hermoso. So, after a month of showcasing the very best of the women’s game, all anybody could talk about was a creepy white bloke in a suit. Sigh.

    Cricket

    Photo by Patrick Case on Pexels.com

    England’s cricketers, fresh off the back of a 3-0 victory in Pakistan, started the year on the other side of the world, where they drew 1-1 with New Zealand. The “series” was the best advert yet for two-Test tours being banned – an epic finish in Wellington saw the hosts prevail by just one run. It was only the second time a Test match had been won by such a tight margin.

    By mid-June, the long-awaited Ashes were underway. England could have won both of the opening games, but Australia took a 2-0 lead to Headingley. Nathan Lyon and Pat Cummins stood tall to see Australia to their target at Edgbaston, then the tourists embarrassed themselves by throwing the stumps down to remove Jonny Bairstow at Lord’s, when everyone knew the ball was dead. Still, Ben Stokes almost pulled off a miracle. After that, Bazball well and truly came to the party. Only a day and a half of rain at Old Trafford prevented there being a decider at The Oval, but England made it 2-2 there anyway and saw Stuart Broad off into retirement on a high note. The Ashes are still with Australia, but having thrown away a 2-0 lead and still not won a Test series in England since 2001, we came out of it the better.

    The less said about the World Cup the better. England’s defence of their 2019 title was as unexpected as it was feeble – they lost to New Zealand, Afghanistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka, India and Australia and finished 7th in the group stage. Their only victories came against Bangladesh, the Netherlands and a consolation win against Pakistan when both sides were already out. The hosts India won all nine of their group games and then the semi-final against New Zealand, only to lose to Australia in the final. The Aussies took home the World Cup for the 6th time. No one else has won it more than twice.

    Rugby Union

    Photo by Patrick Case on Pexels.com

    I have never been much of a rugby union fan, but I did enjoy watching the World Cup during September and October. The respect for the referee’s decisions from the players, and the clarity of the Touchline Match Official system, made a refreshing break from the vitriol and incompetence of football. England were unlucky to lose to the eventual champions South Africa in the semi-finals, though the quarter final between the Springboks and hosts France was the best game of rugby I have ever seen. Have a look at the highlights of that one below.

    Tennis

    Photo by Gonzalo Facello on Pexels.com

    Again, tennis isn’t one of my favourite sports but I do enjoy watching it now and again. Highlights from this year were Andy Murray, 36 years old and with a metal hip, battling through a number of five-set epics at the Australian Open in January and Carlos Alcaraz beating Novak Djokovic in the Wimbledon final.

  • Teemu Pukki is leaving Norwich City – the moments that made a legend

    I can remember hearing the news that Norwich City had signed Teemu Pukki.

    It was just a cursory midsummer look to see what was going on at the club. Norwich’s first season under the management of Daniel Farke had seen a fairly dull mid-table finish, and with star player James Maddison leaving to join Leicester City, I was looking for something to get excited about. Pukki’s signing was presented in a matter-of-fact way, no cringeworthy unveiling videos or social media teasers to be seen.

    The name rang a bell to me because of a pretty uninspiring spell at Celtic. His career trajectory gave me no reason to be particularly enthused by his arrival. I remember sharing the news of Pukki’s arrival with my Leeds-supporting friend, who had no doubt also sent me something inconsequential that was happening at his club.

    Here is what Daniel Farke had to say about signing Pukki:

    “I’m very pleased with this signing. We got the feeling that Teemu is a good fit to our ideas because he is a technical player with really smart movements.

    “We were speaking about how we need to make more runs in-behind and runs from deep and he’s a player who has the smart movements.

    “He also has lots of speed which is also important. Wherever he plays, he was always able to be there with goals and assists.

    “He’s a brilliant character as well so we are very pleased to have him with us.”

    I realise that there’s nothing out of the ordinary here. Managers often say things like this about their new signings. But what strikes me, reading these lines back now, is how right he was.

    Because Teemu Pukki will leave Norwich City next month as a club legend.

    That isn’t hyperbole. Pukki has scored 88 goals for Norwich and still has a bit of time left to add a few more. He has been voted the club’s player of the season twice, and in 2019 he was named the player of the season in the whole of the Championship. For four seasons he was Norwich’s top scorer. He has scored a Premier League hat trick. He has scored in the East Anglian derby.

    His imminent departure, another piece of that wonderful Farke era moving on, will make those glorious days feel ever further away. There will be more City heroes to come, and they can come from the most unlikely places, as Pukki himself did. But the Norwich City of 2018-2022 will always be fondly remembered, and leading the line was Teemu Pukki.

    Let’s pick out a few memorable Pukki moments.

    The first goal – Norwich 3-4 West Brom, 11th August 2018

    Norwich didn’t start the 2018-19 season particularly well, drawing 2-2 at Birmingham in Pukki’s debut and then losing 4-3 at home to West Brom. But the second Norwich goal that day was Teemu’s first for the club and a sign of things to come.

    Last gasp winner against Millwall – Norwich 4-3 Millwall, 10th November 2018

    Following Norwich was anything but boring in 2018-19, with a plethora of great games and last minute winners to enjoy. One of the first was this 4-3 victory over Millwall in November 2018, when Norwich had actually gone into stoppage time losing 3-2. Jordan Rhodes equalised, and then Teemu did his thing.

    Scoring in the derby – Norwich 3-0 Ipswich, 10th February 2019

    A sure-fire way to endear yourself to the Norwich fans is to score against Ipswich in the derby. In his first Carrow Road meeting with that lot from the other end of the A140, Teemu scored twice as City stamped their authority on the old enemy.

    A Premier League hat trick – Norwich 3-1 Newcastle, 17th August 2019

    With his goals helping Norwich to the Championship title in 2018-19, the Premier League returned to Carrow Road with a 3-1 victory over Newcastle and Teemu scored the lot. The volley for the first one was an absolute beauty. Pukki’s flying start to the campaign saw him named the Premier League player of the month for August 2019.

    Sealing a win over the champions – Norwich 3-2 Man City, 14th September 2019

    What a night this was – Norwich sent the Premier League champions Manchester City packing on an electric early evening at Carrow Road, with Teemu calmly finishing the third goal after Emi Buendia had picked Nicolas Otamendi’s pocket. I don’t think I’ve ever heard Carrow Road louder.

    A great strike on the volley – Newcastle 1-1 Norwich, 30th November 2021

    Norwich faded after that great start in 2019-20 and ended up finishing bottom of the Premier League, but Pukki banged in another 26 goals in the Championship to ensure they bounced straight back. It was another tough, ultimately doomed season but this strike from Teemu to rescue a point at St James’ Park was one of the few highlights.

    Those were just a few of my favourite Pukki moments but, really, there was a lot to choose from. For someone who has only been at the club for five years it has certainly been an eventful period. This video, produced by the club on the occasion of his 50th Norwich goal, demonstrates the variety of finishes the Finn is capable of.

    As Dr Seuss once said: don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened. Thank you, Teemu, for everything you have done for Norwich City. I wish you every success wherever you go next and you will always be a welcome guest at Carrow Road.

  • David Wagner is Norwich City’s new manager – this is a watershed moment for the club

    The events of the last week will, I think, prove to be a watershed moment for Norwich City Football Club.

    Former Huddersfield manager David Wagner is the new man in charge of Norwich City

    The displeasure and the disconnect felt by the fans was not only about the club’s repeated inability to put up a fight in the Premier League. It was deeper than that. We felt like we were being taken for granted. The people in power had shut themselves away and lost touch with us. The head coach just didn’t seem to ‘get’ Norwich.

    I found myself in the unusual position of directly calling for the manager to be sacked. Norwich isn’t a club that is known for wielding the axe. A manager tends to be given enough – some might say more than enough – time to make their mark and see out a tough time. The end comes when a natural conclusion is reached.

    Only thirteen months into the job, however, Dean Smith had to go. Many were sceptical about his appointment in the first place. He would have had to hit the ground running to get those people on board. It wouldn’t have taken much to turn the atmosphere toxic.

    On the pitch, Smith failed. It is as simple as that. He was given the job to keep Norwich in the Premier League and they were relegated with a whimper, rock bottom. Then it was to get them straight back up. He left with the automatic promotion places a long way away.

    These players haven’t become bad all of a sudden. Several of them have won the Championship title twice with us before. It’s unrealistic to expect them to stroll to a third, but for that squad to be in mid table, looking average at best, is not good enough. Teemu Pukki is a striker with a proven record at this level who would be picked by any other team in the division, yet he is having a quiet season by his standards. Max Aarons had been touted for a lucrative move to some of the world’s biggest clubs, yet his form this season has seen him at times unable to get into the starting eleven. Marcelino Nunez arrived in the summer with a legion of fans in his native Chile, excited about their man showing the English game what he was capable of. He displayed his skill and flair early on but has gone off the boil as time has gone on. My only explanation for this is the way these players have been coached. Dean Smith (and his assistant, Craig “Shakey” Shakespeare) have taken good players and made them worse.

    The fans became bored of the ponderous, directionless style of play. As the situation came to a head, they would boo when the ball was played back to the centre halves or goalkeeper. We actually did a lot of playing out from the back under the much loved Daniel Farke, but it always felt like there was a purpose to it. We have memories of many beautiful goals, a culmination of tens of passes, to prove it. The football under Smith was too predictable, too easy to play against, too lacking in entertainment.

    When planning to write this, I looked up the records of Norwich’s previous managers and discovered that the percentage of games that we won under Smith (28.57%) was the worst for a permanent coach since the 27 game spell of Gary Megson (18.5%) in 1995-96.

    On the pitch, Smith was a write-off. He might be a ‘good bloke’ and a ‘good coach’ – the Aston Villa fans showered him with love when he first came to Norwich, but months down the line admitted that he didn’t really have a plan for a Villa side that didn’t have Jack Grealish in it. He will probably get another job soon (he has already been linked with the vacant position at Portsmouth) and enjoy some modest success. I don’t have any ill will towards the guy now he’s gone. Some managers fit a club and some don’t.

    The dull performances and bad results on the field made me refuse to go and watch our home games for two months. I saw the defeat to Luton on 18th October and didn’t return until the draw with Reading on 30th December, the first game after Smith’s sacking. But it wasn’t the actual football that hurt me the most.

    The relationship between a football club and its fans is special. Mess with it at your peril. It isn’t about eleven men or women trying to kick a ball into a net. Your football club represents your home. It represents you. For a lot of us, the team’s achievements are our achievements. We feel personal success when they do well.

    Norwich is special. The people of this fine city, this fine isolated city, are fiercely proud of it. That is reflected in the football club. We are a club that has always done things differently, where the fans have not been treated as customers but as the lifeblood of the whole thing.

    Daniel Farke completely got that. It might seem shallow, but the way he would always applaud every section of the stadium at the end of a game made us feel valued. I was never expecting Dean Smith to wave his arms around and give it the full “olé” to all four corners of Carrow Road, but the bloke never even came on the pitch. It was just a small sign that he was there to work with the players and not with us. He probably never saw it that way but that’s how it felt. That approach never had a long term future at Norwich City.

    Daniel Farke always showed his appreciation for the Norwich fans

    Smith didn’t seem to like us and his uninspiring press conferences didn’t help either. I became resentful. I didn’t want to look down from the Barclay and see him on the touchline as the face of my club. I used my platform, a column once a month in the Eastern Daily Press, to say the club needed a new manager. I did it twice, actually, and the second time I was stronger. Strong enough that I wondered if they would print it without toning it down. To their credit they did. I obviously had no part to play in Smith leaving, the tide was already going that way, but a week after the second column he was sacked. I could look at my club with optimism again.

    The most pleasing thing, for me, was something that the sporting director Stuart Webber said in an interview with Sky Sports on Monday:

    “I’ve been here for six years. I’ve had a great time here, a great fanbase with great numbers that turn up. But I probably didn’t appreciate quite how important that connection between the head coach and the fanbase until it wasn’t there. 

    I’d only known that with Daniel (Farke). We finished 14th in the first season but ultimately the fans wanted to believe in him because the fans had that connection. 

    It’s not about having a happy clapper that walks on to the pitch to keep the fans happy because that doesn’t work if there’s no substance behind his work. 

    We as a football club have to be aware that it’s important we get someone that really understands the community, the fanbase because it’s a little bit unique in that respect.” 

    — Stuart Webber

    It seems that, at last, the penny may have dropped. It is not enough to just bring in a manager with strong footballing credentials, they have to be able to connect with the fans.

    A shiver went down my spine when I heard the names of Steve Bruce and Chris Wilder mentioned. Two men I certainly don’t want leading my club. But it would appear that they were only rumours, and rumours that were always wide of the mark.

    In the end, Webber has returned to someone he has worked with before. Someone he has had success with before. Someone born in Germany. Someone who has previously managed Borussia Dortmund’s reserve team.

    Alas, it’s not a stunning return for Daniel Farke. It’s actually a friend of his and his predecessor in that Dortmund job. It’s David Wagner.

    Wagner is best known in this country for his time in charge of Huddersfield Town, where he led them to a surprise Premier League promotion via the play-offs in 2017 and then, even more impressively, kept them there with a successful battle against relegation. It was the first time Huddersfield had been in the top flight since 1972. He left in the January of Huddersfield’s second Premier League season with the club eight points adrift of safety, but he remains well liked for his achievements in West Yorkshire and for the Gegenpressing style of play he implemented.

    In Wagner, Norwich have a manager in place who is hungry for success after a couple of short spells at Schalke and Swiss side Young Boys. He is likely to have a clear plan for how he wants his team to play, and that plan is likely to have Pukki licking his lips. He will also have the backing of the fans.

    This feels right. It feels like it might work. We might just have the manager we need. And if out of all of this we have a hierarchy that will never again underestimate the importance of the fans to Norwich City, these are good times indeed.

  • The Hundred might look like a good thing but it’s causing big problems for cricket

    A reminder: cricket is the best sport in the world. I feel it worth reminding everyone because I’m about to spend a few minutes chewing my nails about its current state and future direction.

    If you’re not a dedicated follower of the game, you would be forgiven for thinking that all is well and that cricket is entering the national consciousness more than it has done for some time. You may have noticed that BBC Two have shown a couple of matches from the first week of the Hundred tournament, and that cricket has also been a part of the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games.

    The Hundred is controversial because, while its outward intention is noble in attempting to get new fans interested in cricket, it has gone about this by implying that the traditional game can’t be sold to the public. The fundamentals – such as an over consisting of six balls – have been thrown out of the window, creating a whole new format that no one else in the world plays and bears little resemblence to the others. If the Hundred is meant to be gaining new fans for cricket, what is the point of changing the rules to the extent that those new fans will find it difficult to get into Test matches or One Day Internationals?

    Aside from the format, the Hundred disposes of the traditional county teams and is competed for by sides that reek of a marketing agency brainstorming session. If you think the Manchester Originals and the Welsh Fire sound tacky, you should see their logos. Obviously, in England we only have a few months of the year to play cricket so adding the Hundred to the calendar has raised serious questions about overly packed schedules and player burnout. The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) have made it clear that the Hundred is their marquee tournament – it gets the biggest marketing budget – and therefore it gets the prime place in the summer, during the school holidays. The T20 Blast, which since its inception in 2003 had been English cricket’s great domestic money spinner, was done and dusted by the time the kids broke up.

    Hampshire won the 2022 T20 Blast, but you’d be forgiven for having missed it

    Personally, I’m not a fan. I may have been a cricket devotee for twenty years but I’m not one of those pig-headed enough to think the game doesn’t have to appeal to new audiences. Ever since England internationals were sold to Sky in 2006, the game has waned in its relevance to the public. Children aren’t becoming obsessed by the sport by stumbling across it on Channel 4, like I did. Players like Joe Root and Ben Stokes should be rock stars, yet they could walk down most streets unnoticed. The Hundred does at least put cricket back on terrestrial television, yet in my opinion at an unnecessarily high cost. Pumping the same money into the T20 Blast, pushing it into the public eye on BBC TV at the height of summer would surely have had the same effect.

    I do still watch the Hundred. It is still cricket, and I doubt the impact of an individual boycotting something like that. But when I see the BBC Two coverage starting with a sort of rap/hip hop tune in its opening titles, I get the impression that this tournament isn’t for me. Every effort is made to appeal to young people, to ‘urbanise’ the game, and in a way it feels like a bit of an insult to cricket itself because the game is already great. I feel nothing for the teams, being made up and not steeped in any kind of history of tradition, and it takes me a while to remember who won its first edition last year (it was Southern Brave).

    So for all the Hundred is doing in appealing to new fans, it leaves us with a summer schedule bursting at the seams. Ben Stokes, arguably England’s most exciting player, withdrew from the tournament last summer as well as all other forms of cricket to prioritise his mental health. This year, he announced before it had even started that he wasn’t going to play in it before retiring from ODIs, citing having to play too often as one of the reasons for his decision. Having only just turned 31 and three years on from almost single-handedly winning the World Cup for England, these should be the prime years of his career so it should be a significant warning to the authorities that he felt his only option was to walk away.

    Ben Stokes played his last ODI in July, before retiring from the format at the age of 31

    The Hundred is just one of many domestic tournaments around the world that cricketers can sign up for. Unlike football, the international game has traditionally been seen as the most important and most lucrative. This has changed dramatically since the Indian Premier League (IPL) was launched in 2008. According to an article by Tim Wigmore in the August issue of Wisden Cricket Monthly, the IPL’s latest broadcasting rights deal will see each live match generate £12 million – out of all the sports leagues in the world, only the NFL (American Football) is more lucrative. Keen to grab their own slice of the pie, other tournaments have popped up all over the world. There is the Big Bash in Australia, the Pakistan Super League, and a new one that is due to launch in the United Arab Emirates early next year.

    The Indian Premier League has been an astonishing success

    Professional cricketers can earn life changing sums of money from playing in these tournaments all over the world. Only players from India, Australia and England could hope to earn as much from playing for their countries. This has left players with extraordinary decisions to make, and increasingly they are prioritising representing an IPL franchise over playing for their nations. It’s a worrying situation, and the Hundred is only adding to the headache.

  • We won a game of football! | Norwich Nuggets: Everton (h)

    Adam Idah scored as Norwich beat Everton 2-1 at Carrow Road

    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.

    Norwich held on for a massive three points

  • ‘He’s a coach. He knows what he’s doing’ | Norwich Nuggets: Southampton (h)

    Oh, how I’ve missed that winning feeling. Walking amongst the crowds back to my car after Norwich City 2-1 Southampton, there was a buzz that had been missing so far this season. Having won none of their first ten games, the Canaries now have back-to-back Premier League victories for the first time since 2016 and, having failed to win on any of the previous 32 occasions they had gone behind in a top-flight game, they secured the three points today.

    New Norwich manager Dean Smith adorned the front of the matchday programme

    I overheard someone talking on his phone near the burger van outside Carrow Road after the game. He was telling whoever was on the other end, quite rightly, that Norwich were poor in the first half (that was not the word he used, mind) but that new head coach Dean Smith ‘sorted it out at half time’ and said ‘he’s a coach. He knows what he’s doing.’ I agree with this unknown gentleman and, for me, that was the most impressive outcome from the game. City were dreadful in the first half and were very lucky to go in level at the break. Smith clearly noticed what was going wrong and corrected it, as they were a far better side when they came back out and deserved their win.

    Max Aarons is more of a winger than a full back

    Southampton’s Kyle Walker-Peters must not have been able to believe the amount of space he had on the Carrow Road pitch in the first half. The number of times that the ball was pinged to him completely unguarded beggared belief, and this was the fault of Max Aarons. There is a lot to admire about the academy product but he is constantly drawn out of position and it feels like he might be better suited to playing on the wing, running at the opposition and putting in crosses, with a more defensively minded player at full back.

    Good to see Cantwell and Gilmour back in the fold

    Billy Gilmour grew into the game for Norwich City

    Daniel Farke seemed to have given up on both Todd Cantwell and Billy Gilmour towards the end of his tenure. It was positive to see both players very much involved with Dean Smith’s first couple of training sessions and certainly to see both in the starting eleven today. Cantwell didn’t have the best of games, clearly lacking in match sharpness and appearing to pull a muscle before being substituted at half time, but Gilmour grew into the game and his well-directed corner allowed Grant Hanley to head home Norwich’s winner. The Scot on loan from Chelsea was named the sponsor’s man of the match.

    Off the bottom – is the great escape on?

    It feels like a long time ago now but Norwich finally got their first win of the season at Brentford before the international break and backed that up with another three points today. Combined with the boost that a change in manager usually brings, there is a growing hope that City might be able to grind out enough points to stay in the Premier League. They have moved off the bottom of the table, thanks to Newcastle remaining winless, and appear to be on an upward trajectory. At the very least, they are no longer cut adrift.

    Captain Grant Hanley headed the winning goal for Norwich from a corner

  • Wouldn’t Carrow Road be a better place without some of the Snake Pit? | Norwich Nuggets: Brighton (h)

    Another dull international break finally over, Norwich City returned to action with a home game against Brighton & Hove Albion. There was hope in the air: the point and clean sheet gained at Burnley two weeks ago, the success our players had while away with their countries and a pleasingly short injury list combined to put a spring in the step of many City fans.

    Alas, it ended 0-0.

    A moment that will haunt Josh Sargent

    Solid at the back – at last

    Five at the back. Dimitris Giannoulis and Max Aarons the full backs, with Ben Gibson, Grant Hanley and Ozan Kabak forming a wall in front of goalkeeper Tim Krul. This formation was first deployed at Burnley and it brought Norwich’s first Premier League clean sheet since February 2020. Ok, Brighton weren’t great. Certainly not the ‘top four challengers’ we’ve heard so much about. Credit where credit is due though. All of the defenders played well and worked together to keep them out.

    Those five were aided by man-of-the-match Matthias Normann, who charged all over the pitch until cramp got the better of him. Pierre Lees-Melou also had his best game in a City shirt, demonstrating a handy ability to nick the ball off the opposition and move the ball away from danger.

    Matthias Normann was excellent against Brighton

    What does Farke see in Rupp?

    I have to say I was rather surprised to see Lukas Rupp getting ready to come on in the second half, to replace the aforementioned Normann. What Norwich seemed to lack all afternoon was a bit of creativity, someone to play that pass or make that run that just opens things up. I thought this was a perfect time to bring on Billy Gilmour, confidence high after earning rave reviews in the Scotland team. I struggle to see what Rupp brings to the side to be honest, but Daniel Farke is clearly a big fan.

    Wouldn’t Carrow Road be a better place without some of the Snake Pit?

    The Snake Pit believes itself to be Norwich’s ‘ultras’ but so far this season that corner of the ground has come to represent exactly what I don’t want my football club to be. Some (and I stress, some) booed the taking of the knee (a simple anti-racism gesture), booed the team after a good performance, and in one particularly embarrassing moment booed the wrong black man until they could work out which one Yves Bissouma was, the unused Brighton substitute believed to be the one arrested earlier this month. Some of the Snake Pit crowd need to take a long look at themselves.

    The best we’ve played this season

    Despite the negativity I’ve seen on social media, I was actually proud of the performance of the Norwich team today and I applauded the players as they did a lap of the ground at full time. It was the best I’ve seen us play this season (a low bar, I am aware) and there have been real signs of improvement since the dreadful home defeat to Watford. There is also no sign of anyone not playing for the manager.

  • Ok, now you have permission to panic | Norwich Nuggets: Watford (h)

    Four games into the Premier League season and with four defeats, the home game against Watford was as close to a must win as it is possible to be at this stage of the campaign. Sadly, Norwich didn’t have any answers on another dreadful day. Here are some thoughts on Norwich City 1-3 Watford.

    Norwich had another bad day at the office against Watford

    Running out of answers

    It doesn’t seem to matter how much money Norwich spend, what team they put out, or what formation they play – the Premier League is a nut they just can’t crack. I was pleased with the team news before kick off today. New signings Ozan Kabak and Mathias Normann were given their debuts, and there were two recognised strikers in the eleven in Teemu Pukki and Josh Sargent – rare to say the least in a Daniel Farke side. Both of the new boys were brought in to try to strengthen our rather leaky defence, Kabak as part of the back four and Normann in a defensive midfielder role acting as an extra barrier. Kabak was good in places, read the game well and looked comfortable on the ball. Normann showed only a glimpse of his passing ability. There will be much more to come from both of them, but today it was the same old story for City.

    Just as they had done against Leicester, the Canaries conceded an early goal. When you’re always having to chase the game, it’s really tough to get anything out of it. In the first half they actually looked quite bright going forward and Teemu Pukki’s lovely finish was a reminder of what the team are actually capable of – but it was all too fleeting as more needless mistakes at the back saw Watford run out pretty comfortable winners.

    For the first time, Farke hears the boos

    It’s been four years and four months since Daniel Farke was appointed Norwich City manager. Today may well have the been first time he’s ever received boos from the Carrow Road crowd. It was sad, but not unexpected, as the frustrated City fans told the boss exactly what they thought of the performance as he manfully acknowledged each side of the ground at full time. It really isn’t easy to turn the atmosphere in a football ground around once it’s turned toxic. Only goals and wins will get the boo boys back on his side.

    Daniel Farke has work to do

    Watford are nothing special

    Towards the end of the game the Watford players were literally running rounds around their Norwich opponents. It was actually quite embarrassing. You can sort of take losing to the likes of Liverpool and Man City, but being taught a lesson at home by a team as ordinary as Watford? The Canaries have got serious problems. There really doesn’t seem much that sets Watford apart from Norwich, they just showed a bit more guts on the day. I can see it being a relegation battle for the Hornets, but given how easy it was for them in the end that really isn’t a good sign for Norwich.

    A good cup result is important

    With Norwich’s 38 game battle to stay in the Premier League now reduced to a 33 game one, some fans might think it right to put out a second string against Liverpool in the Carabao Cup on Tuesday so we can ‘concentrate on the league’. With confidence as low as it is, however, a decent performance and a good result against the Reds could do wonders ahead of our next league assignment at Everton next weekend.

  • Looking through my box of comics and feeling old

    In my younger days, I loved The Beano and The Dandy and my mum had both comics delivered to the house each week. I thought the smell of a fresh comic was one of the most intoxicating imaginable and was sold on their bright colours, gentle humour and simple charm.

    I have a large, very heavy box under my bed right now containing pretty much every comic that ever came through the letterbox of my childhood home. When I feel like adult life is getting on top of me, which happens more often than it really should, I open the box and spend a while indulging myself in the innocence of youth.

    It seems that my ‘golden’ period of receiving The Beano and The Dandy was between 1999 – the year I turned 7 – and 2003, when I was 11.

    My box of comics

    There’s a sort of running joke I have with a friend from when I was at university. We often talk about how we’re getting old and that our youth is well behind us. Well, we will both be 30 next birthday (him before me, I must add) which feels like something of a milestone but our chat about pipes, slippers and bowls of mashed up apple might be somewhat premature.

    Still, looking back through my old comics, it’s hard not to smile at how dated these dear old things are. Here are a few examples.

    This issue of The Beano, from December 2002, was giving away a free pack of stickers for your FA Premier League album. Collecting football stickers is still very much a thing, so nothing too bad so far, but look at the players used to advertise this brilliant giveaway! Dennis Bergkamp of Arsenal (retired in 2006), Paolo Di Canio of West Ham (now 53 years old) and Michael Owen of Liverpool (who left the Premier League to join Real Madrid two seasons later).

    A 9-year-old can’t just fill his football sticker album up on an empty stomach, though. He’s got to have breakfast first. How about some Mornflake Oats? You can still buy them, though heaven knows when I last saw an advert for them. The bit that caught my eye was the statement that they are available at Somerfield. That particular chain of supermarkets was taken over by the Co-Op in 2009, and by 2012 all Somerfield stores had been rebranded to that of their new owners.

    I’ve written before about how I’m not into films, but Disney’s Tarzan was one of the few that I have actually seen in the cinema. The film was released in October 1999, but by Christmas 2002 the character was back in an exciting new video game for… the GameBoy Advance. Released in the summer of 2001, the GameBoy Advance took games away from the bedroom and made them portable – for as long as the battery would last, that is. I never had one (I had the original GameBoy, which was in black and white).

    I may not have had a GameBoy Advance but I did have a PlayStation 2. Pretty much everyone I knew who was my age between 2002 and 2006 had one, actually. There was one boy at school who had a GameCube – we all thought he was weird. The PS2 is still the best selling games console of all time (more than 155 million of them have been sold worldwide) but anyone who wasn’t lucky enough to own one in December 2002 had the chance to win one in this competition. Note how you can’t enter online, you’ve got to send your entry in by post.

    Speaking of brilliant competitions, here’s another one. I don’t know if this still happens, but when I was a kid it seemed nearly everyone – boys especially – went through a stage where we’d spend that bit between getting home from school and going in for tea whizzing about on skateboards. I had one myself, but I was utterly useless at it and never did manage to pull off a single trick on it. Here the comic is giving away a skateboard. What could possibly make that prize better? By the skateboard having a photo of your favourite WWF wrestler on it, of course!

    Yes, nowadays it’s the WWE that does wrestling, but until 2002 it was called the World Wrestling Federation. They were forced to change the name when they lost a court battle with the World Wildlife Fund. I swear I’m not making this up.

    Those are just a few examples of how the last 20 years or so have changed the world, seen through the prism of British comics. Wow, does it make me wish I was 10 again. The comics still even have the little sticker on them that the newsagent would use to let the paper boy know where to deliver them. Simpler, happier times.

    If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading.

  • With each VAR decision, a part of football dies | Norwich Nuggets: Leicester (h)

    Some thoughts on Norwich City 1-2 Leicester City, as the Canaries go into the first international break of the season winless and without a goal from open play in the Premier League.

    Trouble getting a pre-match coffee should have been a warning

    I met my mother and her significant other for a coffee and a muffin in the Morrisons café opposite Carrow Road before the match, only to have my dream of a refreshment break having raced down there from work thwarted by mum being told that ‘they had no cups left for hot drinks’. Excuse me? It’s 1.30pm on a Saturday, a matchday, and a big shop like that has run out of cups to have a hot drink in? Mum was furious, but thinking about it now it’s so hilariously rubbish. We left and found refreshment elsewhere but, Morrisons, you really have to plan ahead for when Norwich are at home. It shouldn’t be a surprise to you that you’re extra busy when there’s a match on. I guess it should have been a warning of what was to come on the pitch.

    The Morrisons supermarket opposite Carrow Road, who had run out of cups for hot drinks by 1.30pm on a matchday. I didn’t call the police on them – this photo is from when the store was subject to a bomb threat.

    VAR just isn’t worth it

    The dreaded Video Assistant Referee (VAR) played its part in two major incidents in today’s game, having been virtually absent from Norwich’s first two Premier League matches. First, they were awarded a penalty in the first half when Leicester’s Turkish defender Çağlar Söyüncü went to ground clumsily near the byline with Pierre Lees-Melou. The referee gave only a corner, but after a lengthy delay with his hand to his ear was advised by the VAR to go and look at the screen next to the pitch. Teemu Pukki sent the goalkeeper the wrong way to get Norwich back into the match.

    Having gone 2-1 down, the home side looked like they had equalised when Kenny McLean headed in from a corner. The whole of Carrow Road, barring those in blue and white at one end of the South Stand, jumped up in delight and it took some time for the crowd to notice the awful sight of the referee with his hand in the air, disallowing the goal, seemingly based on something seen by his assistant. After what felt like an age, VAR had decided it was indeed offside – 5ft 8in Todd Cantwell was standing in an offside position, apparently blocking the view of 6ft 2in goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel. The mind boggles.

    Both of these, as far as I’m concerned, are further proof that VAR has to go – I’m not just saying this because Norwich were on the rough end of it today. Supporting a football club is about those moments of joy, those roars of delight, that greet a goal. Especially an important equaliser like McLean’s would have been. The VAR took so long to look at it that it surely cannot have been a cut-and-shut decision. Is this really worth destroying the soul of the game for? VAR doesn’t solve an issue, it just creates a new one. Norwich fans are still haunted by the perfectly good goal Pukki had disallowed for offside by VAR against Spurs in 2019 – to this day I cannot fathom how anyone could think he was offside.

    Teemu Pukki was apparently offside here against Spurs in December 2019

    Lees-Melou and Söyüncü came together at the opposite end of the pitch to me in my Barclay seat, but it looked like one of those incidents where everyone shouts for a penalty but no one really expects to get one. If VAR hadn’t been there, and the referee had just given the corner, I would have been fine with it. As it is, the system is ruining the experience of being inside the ground. With each VAR decision cutting short scenes of joyous celebration, a small part of football dies. Get rid of it.

    Williams looks a useful addition

    Brandon Williams is on loan from Manchester United for the season

    I was slightly surprised at the signing of Brandon Williams on loan from Manchester United when it was announced on Monday. I had been impressed with Dimitris Giannoulis at left back in the first game of the season against Liverpool, and thought that a club like United wouldn’t be sending one of their players to us if they didn’t think he’d be playing a lot. I saw him for the first time against Bournemouth in the cup on Tuesday night and he caused plenty of problems down the left, though I found a right-footed left back to be rather odd. On another difficult day for the Norwich defence, I thought he was really good against Leicester. He is able to think quickly, put in the perfect tackle, and has a knack of nipping in just when needed. He could be very handy for the Canaries this season and it shows that there’s quality out there if you look for it in the final days of the transfer window.

    We might be too nice for the Premier League

    It’s fair to say that the step up in class from the Championship to the Premier League is huge, but there’s more to it than pure ability on the pitch. Leicester finished 5th last season, and for all their talent, were still time wasting, diving and getting away with sneaky little fouls all over the pitch today. If Norwich are going to stay up they should think about taking a leaf out of Leicester’s book – they won’t be the only ones who play like that. We’ve got to show more of a nasty side.

    Disappointing to hear the taking of the knee being booed

    There were audible boos when the players took the knee before kick off, and it was incredibly disappointing to hear. I can’t speak for any Leicester fans but I definitely heard jeering coming from the home supporters. What is it about a simple anti-racism stance that gets some people so worked up? The more they boo it, the more it shows that a stance like the knee is needed. If you boo it, you’re not the sort of person we want supporting our club.