Norwich 3 Blackburn 3 - Then Things We Now Know

1 It was a throwback to 2004/05
We go to Old Trafford and lose to two late goals, conceede one at Anfield and then ship three at home to Blackburn - yes this was a real throwback to those dark days of winter 2004/05 when we couldn't defend to save our lives. Chris Samba's goal was probably the worst we've conceeded this season, quite how he had so much space in the box to nod home a cross that nobody was anywhere near intercepting I don't know

2 Good to see Holt and Morison playing together for once
Steve Morison is our first choice striker and Grant Holt comes off the bench when we need him. That's been the story of October 2011 up front for Norwich City but today we actually had them both up front for the last 28 minutes. Credit to Paul Lambert, he knows when to bring Holty on, but there can't be a City fan in the land who thinks we'd benefit so much more from playing two up front. For some reason in the modern game, two big players can't play together - or so that's the current thinking. Surely City should start with two up front against teams like Blackburn at home, rather than waiting until we're two goals behind

3 Arsenal could help themselves to a hatful against us in our next home game
Watching this game a few minutes after catching the end of Arsenal's awesome 5-3 win over Chelsea made me shudder to think of the damage that Arsene Wenger's side can cause on November 19 in City's next home game. Of all the teams in the top flight capable of giving is a good old thrashing, it's Arsenal who cause the biggest danger. We couldn't handle Yakubu at times today and with Robin van Persie playing out of his skin right now, it could be six or seven. Theo Walcott will give Marc Tierney plenty to think about and then there's Ramsey, Arshavin, Gervinho....

4 Elliott Bennett continues to do his best work in defence
I thought Bennett would be a winger in the mould of Dale Gordon when we signed him, but apart from setting up Leon Barnett's goal against Sunderland, his best work in front of the home defence has been as a kind of deep-lying wing back ahead of Kyle Naughton on the right. After his stupendous tackle against Leon Britton against Swansea, he followed it up with another couple of great tackles again today. He adds plenty of stability on that side, but the jury's out on whether he actually possesses a major goal threat.

5 Physically massive Blackburn should be far more solid
I've seen Blackburn on the telly, but it's not until you see them in the flesh that you realise just how big the side is. The Carrow Road crowd seemed to bust into spontaneous laughter early on when Wes Hoolahan went up for a header against the man mountain that is Samba, he is huge. Throw in 6ft 5ins Steven Nzonzi and the size of both Yakubu and sub David Dunn's arse in those not-so-flattering white shorts and you've got a physically huge side. For some reason though, Blackburn don't have the same fear factor as someone like Stoke which is surprising.

6 Junior Hoillett scored one of the goals of the season on Saturday
Maybe it was the sun in John Ruddy's eyes, maybe it was the fact half time was fast approaching but the neat run and finish from Canadian Hoillett was far and away the best goal Carrow Road has seen so far in the Premier League. Hoillett was the best player on the pitch today and although Steve Morison’s goal was well-taken, Hoilett’s goal was the standout for me. Don’t be surprised to see it in Match of the Day’s goals of the season come May.

7 We finally got a bit of luck back from those first four games.
Remember how unlucky the start of the season was? We let in a late goal at home to Stoke, had Leon Barnett and John Ruddy sent off, gave away harsh penalties, were unlucky not to get something from Chelsea and should have had a penalty against West Brom. That bad luck seemed to have been bottled up and turned into some kind of magic potion that was sprinkled around the Barclay goal for the last ten minutes. Both Bradley Johnson’s goal and the penalty decision relied on huge slices of luck.

8. Great to see a drop ball contested for once
Before the goals started to fly in the best moment of the first half for me was the drop ball incident close to the touchline in the corner of the City stand/N&P stand. City were on the attack and after the ball had been cleared from the box Blackburn skipper Samba went down in the box on his own and stayed there. With the ball about to be sent back in from the City right, the ref stopped play. When it restarted with a dropball Steve Morison was clearly urged by the Blackburn defence to knock the ball back to Paul Robinson, instead he urged his fellow City players forward to contest the dropball. It wish this happened more in football these days, especially when a team who seemed to fall at the slightest knock tried to use the situation to their advantage.

9. Never, ever leave a game early at Carrow Road
We saw it last season and while this season all you’ve missed if you’ve left ten minutes early is Kenwyne Jones goal and James Vaughan’ssmack in the face, those early leavers missed a trick today. Two women who sit near me decided to up sticks a minute before Bradley Johnson’s goal which was just crazy – there was always going to be four or five minutes added time. I don’t want to be sexist but these two women continue to baffle me – they sit and chat through the whole game and smirked in a Carry On-style manner when Blackburn sub David Goodwillie came on. Best of all though, the subject of the 12.45pm kick off against Arsenal in our next home game cropped up with one asking the other what time the game would finish. They couldn’t work it out.

10. It’s the end of October and we’re sitting pretty in eighth place.
Premier League – we’re having a laught, right?

Carrow Road Memories: Norwich v Blackburn in the Premier League and my Jarrold Stand debut

Seven years ago next week Norwich faced tomorrow's opponents Blackburn Rovers in the Premier League for the last time.
It was November 6, 2004 and, incredibly by this season's standards, they had yet to register a single victory in any of their opening 11 games before the visit of Rovers.
I remember the game well. Work commitments meant I couldn't get to any Saturday games that season apart from this one and it was a freezing cold day.
Back in the 2004/05 season, City put a number of tickets on sale on the morning of each game with the ticket office open from 9am. Demand was such that around 300 were on sale and you had to get in the queue pretty damn early to secure a £30 ticket for the then new Jarrold Stand.
Fearful of demand outweighing supply I got in the queue at 6am and shuffled around for a couple of hours until the doors of the ticket office opened and I got a ticket.
I was thrilled to be making my Premier League debut for that season in the new stand and with six hours to kill in Norwich before kick off, I bizarrely went and purchased a new car.
I was turning 30 a few months later and decided to snap up a new VW Polo from Robinsons.
I went along to the showroom and got chatting to a pretty salesgirl who clearly wanted to get out of the office on a dull Saturday.
I took her for a test drive for miles - we practically went to Cromer and back before I decided to buy the car.
I then recall backing Rovers' Barry Ferguson to score the opening goal before taking my seat in a chilly new Jarrold Stand with 23,383 other fans.
The game was pretty forgettable - Matt Svenson gave City the lead early in the second half, jay Bothroyd got sent off for kicking a City player in the corner of the River End and Jarrold Stand and any hopes of a first Premier League win were ended by Paul Dickov four minutes from time.
As I left the Jarrold Stand, which is now my bi-weekly home, for the first time, City's record after the first week of November was P 12 W 0 D 7 L 5.
A week later City were thumped 4-0 at Charlton (!) before finally getting that first win at the 14th attempt at home to Southampton.
My only other games that season were slightly more memorable - the Man City Monday night home game featuring Delia's rousing half-time speech and Craven Cottage on the final Sunday. Enough said.

Norwich 3 Swansea 1 - Ten things we now know

1 That was a good advert for er, Championship football

When two promoted teams clash in the top flight they’re always greeted by condescending niceties from the national media and the same was true of Saturday. Great to have Football Focus doing their entire show from a gloriously sunny Carrow Road and great that both City and Swansea, the two most attractive sides in the Championsip have lost none of their swagger.
This was a game between the sides sitting in 9^th and 10^th in the top flight and fantastic entertainment but it wasn’t really a typical Premier League game. Both sides had so much time on the ball, both defences stood off and both sides made plenty of silly mistakes.

2 The photo on the programme cover was possibly the ugliest I’ve ever seen

Blimey! That’s some photo! A grimacing Phil Jones going for the ball with a gurning Steve Morison on the cover of Saturday’s programme put me off my pre-match sweets! Seriously though, a word on the quality of our matchday programme – it’s really good this year and actually a really good read. They got it spot on this week with profiles of goalscorers Russell Martin and a Q&A with Anthony Pilkington – and if you’ve got the programme – check out who asked the first question!

3 Pilks didn’t take long to get over his Old Trafford miss

I touched on this in the hours after the Old Trafford performance and thought it wouldn’t be too long before he rectified his miss against Manchester United – and wow, it was under a minute! A brilliantly taken goal, that as Alan Shearer said on Match of the Day probably came to him so quickly that he had no time than to do anything else than just rely on his instinct and smash it pass Michel Vorm. Great goal and it certainly got Carrow Road rocking.

4 Elliott Bennett just shaded it as my man of the match

A couple of contenders today, Pilks for his brace and Morison too, but for me the best player in a City shirt was Elliott Bennett. I’ve not been massively impressed with him so far, he’s had flashes of brilliance, but on Saturday he really caught my eye. He seemed to spend most of the game as a right wing back and didn’t really get forward on the right in the same way that Pilks did on the left, but he was a key player against Swansea.
He set up the first goal with that deep cross that found Morison, he hit the bar with a similar cross later in the first half and kept the ball in play brilliantly in front of the Swansea fans when it seemed certain it would go out for a Swansea throw.
Best bit?
His stunning tackle on Leon Britton early in the second half. Britton burst away over the halfway line towards the Barclay and Bennett matched him stride for stride until leaping in from behind and winning the ball. Had he got it wrong he could have been sent off. But he didn’t and put in a superb tackle.

5 Morison and Holt – the gap is getting wider and wider

Let’s hear it for Morison – he got the man of the match in the ground and I can see why. He was brilliant against Swansea, everything he tried came off, his cushioned header set up the first goal, he was a constant threat to Swansea’s defence and had a couple of decent chances to score for himself, but only wayward shooting let him down.
He’s pretty quick for a big man and the contrast between him and Grant Holt, who replaced the Welshman when he picked up a second half knock was marked.
Holt had a decent shot that Michel Vorm parried and looked keen to prove a point, but the gap between Morison and Holt just seems to get bigger and bigger.
I feel for Holt, but Morison is now a certain starter for City each week and, with the first fifth of our Premier League season now over, he is our main striker.

6 David Fox had a stinker – especially in the first half

OK so it was his free-kick that Russell Martin headed home for an early 2-0 lead, but David Fox seemed well off the pace against Swansea, particularly early on. He seemed sluggish and off the pace to me and a couple of times appeared to not want to challenge for the ball. I realise that Bradley Johnson has been drafted in as our midfield muscle as a compliment to Fox, but at times on Saturday, Fox was chasing shadows while Johnson was chasing players.

7 Marc Tierney - give him the ball and things happen

I’ve said in the past couple of columns when City have played at Carrow Road this season that Tierney going forward is a brilliant outlet and yet again he was involved in a City goal. Last season we had Russell Martin and Tierney bombing down each flank, yesterday, with Martin playing on the left side of the central defence partnership with Leon Barnett, we had a brilliant break in the second half that saw Martin and Tierney both head down the left. Martin’s pass to Tierney won City a corner from which we scored our third. Two of the last four City goals have involved Tierney and we have to use him down the left when he gets past the half way line

8 Swansea have enough about them to survive

Going forward I was impressed with the Swans, even though they didn’t give John Ruddy much to do. Nathan Dyer and Scott Sinclair are great players to have in your side away from home where Swansea have struggled this season, largely due to the quality of teams they’ve faced. Sinclair’s involvement in the first goal was excellent, cutting between two City players, going down in the box but still having the nous to flick the ball into the danger area. Britton is a class player too, a little bit like Wes Hoolahan, in that in doesn’t seem to get forward much, but is the player the Swans players look to when they want to get things doing. Ashley Williams is a powerful centre half and Vorm, although he had a poor start, looks like a decent keeper. Perhaps they just need a couple of fast full backs like City!

9 Danny Graham looks like the real deal

He shined in Watford’s win that started last season at Carrow Road and got another on Saturday, but goals aside, Graham looks a much better player than last year. He’s exactly the sort of striker I think City need. Strong, mobile and quick, he’d have a field day partnered with Morison.

10 We are really enjoying this Premier League season

Remember how low you felt on the afternoon of September 11 after defeat at Carrow Road by West Brom. Two points from the first four points and we were in danger of hitting the bottom of the table had we lost at Bolton. We’ve taken 9 points from 12 since then and put in a unanimously creditable performance at Old Trafford – who’d a thought it would be this good?

Book review - 32 Programmes by Dave Roberts

Seven game in to this season and, with at least one FA Cup game to come, Norwich fans have 32 programmes left to get a complete set.
And, by coincidence, 32 Programmes, by Dave Roberts is a great book that I finished reading this morning and it’s a cracking read that I’m sure will be enjoyed by City fans.
Norwich don’t get a mention in the book, which, simply put, is one man looking back on the games that shaped his football-watching CV linked of course to the match day programmes he picked up along the way.
The reason for the book’s title is because author Roberts had been set a challenge by his second wife to cull over a thousand programmes down to just one box for a move to the USA, and this is the story of why he chose the ones he did, each triggering a memory from part of his life.
Football fans will strike a chord with loads of feelings and emotions that jump out in this book – there’s the games of Roberts’ youth when he first purchased a programme, tales of going round to Denis Law’s house to get an autograph, trying to impress girls and one of the best chapters is when he went all the way to Nottingham Forest just to get a programme for the school bully.
As Robert’s gets older women, drink and random decisions figure more and more – not to excess by any means, but as regular themes on why this fan who doesn’t support one league club, ends up at different grounds.
Certain teams get more mention than others, and even though most of the action in the book is a generation before my own, the nostalgic references to World Cups and Cup finals are great. Some of the recall is brilliant and at times it really feels like you actually know Roberts, such is the depth he goes into.
The one shame is that the book is so detailed in the early stages with two or three games a season and you really get a sense of Roberts’ change from boy to youth to man, with 18 years covering the first 29 programmes.
Then there are just a couple of entries for the 1980s as we learn that Roberts’ life took a major downturn in the 1990s. The last chapter is all about the 32^nd programme, and without giving away, the reader learns it is the most important one of all, and I admit, I could feel my eyes welling up reading the last chapter.

Manchester United 2 Norwich City 0: Ten Things We Now Know

1 Old Trafford – WOW!
This was my first visit to the home of Manchester United in 19 years and wow, the place has changed. Only Ryan Giggs remains from the last time I came, there was no Stretford end then and the stand at the other end is now twice as big.
I went to the game with my mate Mike, a big United fan, who I’ve not seen for well over a decade and it was great to chew the cud during the game, even if I sat in the United end high up behind the goal in the East Stand.

2 For a massive ground, Old Trafford is pretty quiet.
Maybe it was a hangover from the Basel game in the Champions League, but the United crowd were so, so quiet, only coming alive in the last 20 minutes when Anderson and Danny Welbeck scored their goals. The City fans were in fine voice, however, and did themselves proud with the predictable ditty: “We’re Norwich City, we’ve come for our scarves.”

3 Norwich didn’t score but we’ve come on leaps and bounds since Chelsea.
Games against Bolton and Wigan on the road are one thing, games against Chelsea and Man United are another. The only game we can really compare this one to was Chelsea away five weeks ago, and even though we didn’t score, we were so much more organised. The back four were immense, five across the middle worked and we created plenty of chances. Away at Old Trafford, what more can you ask? As I said to Mike in the first half, we were more than a match for United, we just needed two strikers up front to give us a chance of winning the game!
But considering this was pretty much the biggest games in the careers of most of the Norwich players, we put in a great performance.

4 Steve Morison had his best game in a Norwich shirt.
I touched on how improved he looked against Sunderland on Monday, today his performance seemed to go up a notch. It’s never easy being in a team like Norwich when you visit the Champions and, as the lone man up front, it was always going to be a long hot afternoon for the Welsh international. But, to his credit, he had a good game. In the first half he didn’t get that much joy out of the United back four, he would have had a tap in had Elliott Bennett found him early on, but in the second he was awesome. Time and time again he found space, won the ball for fun and should have done better to set up Wes Hoolahan in the second half.

5 Marc Tierney and Bradley Johnson are the heartbeat of this Norwich team.
Boy oh boy did Tierney and Johnson get stuck in today. Both were awesome and, aside from perhaps Bennett who had a great game, they were my star performers. Sitting in with the United fans gave me a renewed perspective of the impact of Tierney – the chap behind me was consistently moaning about “That fookin’ number 23”. He was everywhere at Old Trafford, getting forward, defending with finesse and keeping Wayne Rooney at bay. Johnson too was great, sitting with David Fox in front of the back four. Last time he played at Old Trafford for Leeds he was a winner, and today, he was unlucky not to have left the ground with something too.

6 Anthony Pilkington’s miss was a massive chance, but he’ll get over it.
My first thoughts after watching Pilkington’s missed chance on 65 minutes was the famous Gordon Smith chance to win the 1983 FA Cup final for Brighton against United. It wasn’t quite in the same league as that, or indeed Fernando Torres’ chance against United last month.
But Pilks will certainly know he should have scored after Johnson’s through ball sent him through and Antonio Valencia made a hash of things.
He did everything right apart and from hit the back of the net, but the fact he had the pace and power to get into that position in the first place was great. Pilks has taken to the Premier League with ease and looks really comfortable out there on the left. It won’t be long before he scores his second top flight goal – I reckon it will come against Swansea in two weeks.

7 Jonny Evans and Phil Jones are poles apart.
United’s two central defenders are currently standing in for Rio Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic and while Jones just seems to get better and better, Evans was dreadful today.
Evans was ‘done’ by Steve Morison on a number of occasions, particularly the chance he should have squared to Hoolahan and the reason that ball never came across was down to Jones.

It was Jones again who snuffed out the Bennett cross that Morison could have tapped in to an unguarded net. Evans had little confidence and if he can’t keep someone like Morison in his pocket, god knows how he’ll get on against the more illustrious strikers in the Premier League. Jones, on the other hand, is a really exciting prospect and has a natural desire to steam forward at any opportunity.

8 Stuart Atwell actually had a good game.
Norwich’s first game with the controversial Mr Atwell in the top flight and when I saw his name on the programme I was worried there would be a big controversial moment. There was one in the first half when a United player went down and Marc Tierney put the ball into touch and it never came back to City, but apart from that, Atwell had a good game. There was only one booking in the game and it was never the sort of game that was going to get out of hand.

9 Rooney and Hernandez had an off day.
They were both doubts earlier in the week and even though both started, they were pretty ineffective. It can’t be easy trying to find space when there are eight, nine or ten yellow shirts blocking the path to goal and the two United strikers seemed pretty frustrated. When you think that five weeks ago Arsenal conceded eight, Norwich had plenty more about them at the back, and that obviously made it really tough for Rooney and Hernandez.

10. Boy was it hot!
Manchester. In October. In shorts! This was certainly one of those games I’ll be filing under those bizarre weather games in recent Norwich City history. Off the top of my head that list will include the Herenveen friendly in August 2000 when the players ran off the pitch to avoid a hail storm, Yeovil away in 2009 when the blinding sun meant I could hardly watch any of the first half and Huddersfield at home a few weeks after that when it was absolutely freezing.