It feels like forever since I've been to a game and as I have to work today, it doesn't feel like a match day normally does either. Football doesn't really enter my mind until I've parked the car and start to walk quickly towards Bloomfield. I check the team and as twitter loads mid-stride, it forces me into a misstep.
What?
Where is Grimmy? Why? Who? How? WTF?
I don't really have much time to process it cos I'm starving so I decide that, like the mysteries of space, time and creation, it just is what it is, I'm pleased to get to see Wright play and so eat a pie very quickly, down a pint and get to my seat just as the teams are coming out. Usually, I have more time to reflect on life, the universe and everything (or the team selection as others call it), but today, the game is on top of me before I've adjusted to being inside the ground.
Fuck it. C'MON POOL!!!
---
The first point to make is that Norwich have a fucking horrendous kit on. It's kind of grey, but sort of purple and maybe has a bit of blue or yellow or green in it. It sort of shimmers. It's like a really bad 1990s TopMan shirt and it's telling that it doesn't seem that any of their fans are wearing it.
We're doing ok. A header on the edge of the box, another header on the edge of the box and POVEDA!!! Oh, so close! He's smashed it on (I think) the half volley and it was in until it wasn't. That's a start...
We're doing ok. A header on the edge of the box, another header on the edge of the box and POVEDA!!! Oh, so close! He's smashed it on (I think) the half volley and it was in until it wasn't. That's a start...
There's a really good period where the game is end to end. Norwich palpably have some pretty good players, but our (relative to them) rag tag crew are doing ok. I really like that Wright is getting high up the pitch and floating about giving us an option to pass to. I really like that Patino can actually pass a ball without needing to survey all the possible options really slowly till every choice is closed down before choosing to knock it back to the keeper because there is no other choice now.
The culmination of the end to end spell is Theo on the overlap controlling it, he's taking it too wide, but actually he's not because he makes no fucking sense and angles and physics and suchlike are all just meaningless to him and now he's smashing it and the post is vibrating as the ball ricochets into the South Stand whose occupants all have their heads in their hands...
The ball breaks and suddenly we're free, right up the middle. This never happens to us! Who has it? Jerry?, Patino? Theo? Poveda? Wright? No... It's... Kenny Dougall and he's treading water as much as he's running, A Norwich player is bearing down on him but if he keeps going, he'll be through on goal, Kenny looks panicked and when he needs to just drive on, he glances to his side, shifts his feet to offload it to someone else more naturally suited to being through on goal and that hesitation is all it takes to give the defender the chance he needs. Dougall goes to ground, the ball is smuggled away and he beats the floor in frustration.
We've been good. C'mon! Thompson plays a square ball but... OH FUCKING HELL THOMMO! He's left it short and Pukki is in. Marvin is galloping back back but unlike wor Kenny, Pukki isn't in any doubt what he's going to do and does it clinically, brutally, efficiently and as my head rolls back and I look at the sky in mute frustration at the way things always seem to go, Norwich make a celebratory din and their tinpot drum starts banging away its crappy toyshop beat. Fucking hell.
C'mon Pool! Poveda has it wide, he's tiny, but he backs into his man, holds him off and squares it to Dougall. Kenny knocks it first time to the corner where Wright has made another great run from nowhere and has space, his ball is good, low, dangerous, curling but Norwich slide in and boom it away at full stretch.
It's the last good moment for a while though. They hit the post from a corner. They hit the woodwork again soon after. Maxwell makes a couple of good stops, palming one over and adjusting himself from a deflection to get right behind it. Norwich are all over us now and it looks really quite worrying.
As the half is dying, Yates holds it up. He does that Jerry Yates thing of stuttering with the ball, faking to kick and then pulls out a fucking diamond of a pass, slipping in Wright with an obscenely oblique pass who again has run into space beautifully and is through on goal. Tim Krul (who reminds me of what you'd get if you mashed together Harry Kane and Thibaut Courtois) narrows the angle, Wright shoots into him, the ball pops up, Wright sets himself to nod the rebound home, makes a great firm connection, everything looks perfect, his neck muscles pushing through the ball, the leather right in the sweet spot between the eyes, I'm off my seat and the ball is going agonisingly wide when for all the world, my minds eye was seeing it in the bottom corner...
---
It's a hard one to call. We've done some good things and we've also looked vulnerable for quite big spells. They're a disgrace in terms of their play acting and the ref seems perfectly happy to book people on the basis of how injured their opponent pretends to be as opposed to the actual merits of any given challenge. We need to get back to how we played for the first twenty minutes and try and forget the 15 minutes after they scored where we looked really rattled.
---
Theo goes on the most bizarre run. He's like a shopping trolley with a broken wheel rolling down a busy road but somehow, each lurch and crazed spin in a different direction sees him free and against all odds the trolley doesn't hit a car. He ends up almost exactly where he started but he's beaten about six of their team. He passes it back to one of our defenders. It may have been weird, but it was fun. Like Josh Bowler with a middle ear infection that has destroyed his sense of direction but not his ball skills doing an impression of frightened blindfolded giraffe running around
Yates has a go from a tight angle. A corner... C'mon Pool! The corner sees us scruffing around the edge of the box. It won't break. Poveda is there, Gabriel is there, Wright is there. It won't break. Gabriel is clipped... The referee adds to the general vibe of confusion about his decisions by waiting ages to give it. Wright and Patino are over it. They've set up a wall with a lad lying on the floor behind it because they obviously think they're football hipsters or something. Wright drives and it's touched round the corner. Great effort. Corner again. Hang on. No. Yes? Maybe. Er... Corner it is. The ref seems to have no idea what he's going to do next and to be relying on what the crowd and the player reactions tell him. Which is probably not exactly how the FA refs manual suggests you should do it.
The 53rd minute and the reign of HRH QE2 is marked by the touching traditional ritual of one of their players pretending his leg is broken and one of ours having to be pulled away by his teammates for trying to start a scrap. Eventually everyone realises that shouting 'go on Dom, fucking have him' isn't quite in the spirit of remembrance and the players look a bit sheepish as they grasp whats going on and make friends cos getting sent off in a moment of national tribute might look a bit shit.
There's huff and puff but no one is blowing any houses down. We started well, but have struggled to impose ourselves thereafter. Norwich pull out one great move though, swiftly capitalising on our hesitance, blitzing forward in a couple of passes, Pukki draws a good save from Maxwell who has done well today and Marvin (who has also looked much more like his decisive self) clears the follow up off the line...
The culmination of the end to end spell is Theo on the overlap controlling it, he's taking it too wide, but actually he's not because he makes no fucking sense and angles and physics and suchlike are all just meaningless to him and now he's smashing it and the post is vibrating as the ball ricochets into the South Stand whose occupants all have their heads in their hands...
The ball breaks and suddenly we're free, right up the middle. This never happens to us! Who has it? Jerry?, Patino? Theo? Poveda? Wright? No... It's... Kenny Dougall and he's treading water as much as he's running, A Norwich player is bearing down on him but if he keeps going, he'll be through on goal, Kenny looks panicked and when he needs to just drive on, he glances to his side, shifts his feet to offload it to someone else more naturally suited to being through on goal and that hesitation is all it takes to give the defender the chance he needs. Dougall goes to ground, the ball is smuggled away and he beats the floor in frustration.
We've been good. C'mon! Thompson plays a square ball but... OH FUCKING HELL THOMMO! He's left it short and Pukki is in. Marvin is galloping back back but unlike wor Kenny, Pukki isn't in any doubt what he's going to do and does it clinically, brutally, efficiently and as my head rolls back and I look at the sky in mute frustration at the way things always seem to go, Norwich make a celebratory din and their tinpot drum starts banging away its crappy toyshop beat. Fucking hell.
C'mon Pool! Poveda has it wide, he's tiny, but he backs into his man, holds him off and squares it to Dougall. Kenny knocks it first time to the corner where Wright has made another great run from nowhere and has space, his ball is good, low, dangerous, curling but Norwich slide in and boom it away at full stretch.
It's the last good moment for a while though. They hit the post from a corner. They hit the woodwork again soon after. Maxwell makes a couple of good stops, palming one over and adjusting himself from a deflection to get right behind it. Norwich are all over us now and it looks really quite worrying.
As the half is dying, Yates holds it up. He does that Jerry Yates thing of stuttering with the ball, faking to kick and then pulls out a fucking diamond of a pass, slipping in Wright with an obscenely oblique pass who again has run into space beautifully and is through on goal. Tim Krul (who reminds me of what you'd get if you mashed together Harry Kane and Thibaut Courtois) narrows the angle, Wright shoots into him, the ball pops up, Wright sets himself to nod the rebound home, makes a great firm connection, everything looks perfect, his neck muscles pushing through the ball, the leather right in the sweet spot between the eyes, I'm off my seat and the ball is going agonisingly wide when for all the world, my minds eye was seeing it in the bottom corner...
---
It's a hard one to call. We've done some good things and we've also looked vulnerable for quite big spells. They're a disgrace in terms of their play acting and the ref seems perfectly happy to book people on the basis of how injured their opponent pretends to be as opposed to the actual merits of any given challenge. We need to get back to how we played for the first twenty minutes and try and forget the 15 minutes after they scored where we looked really rattled.
---
Theo goes on the most bizarre run. He's like a shopping trolley with a broken wheel rolling down a busy road but somehow, each lurch and crazed spin in a different direction sees him free and against all odds the trolley doesn't hit a car. He ends up almost exactly where he started but he's beaten about six of their team. He passes it back to one of our defenders. It may have been weird, but it was fun. Like Josh Bowler with a middle ear infection that has destroyed his sense of direction but not his ball skills doing an impression of frightened blindfolded giraffe running around
Yates has a go from a tight angle. A corner... C'mon Pool! The corner sees us scruffing around the edge of the box. It won't break. Poveda is there, Gabriel is there, Wright is there. It won't break. Gabriel is clipped... The referee adds to the general vibe of confusion about his decisions by waiting ages to give it. Wright and Patino are over it. They've set up a wall with a lad lying on the floor behind it because they obviously think they're football hipsters or something. Wright drives and it's touched round the corner. Great effort. Corner again. Hang on. No. Yes? Maybe. Er... Corner it is. The ref seems to have no idea what he's going to do next and to be relying on what the crowd and the player reactions tell him. Which is probably not exactly how the FA refs manual suggests you should do it.
The 53rd minute and the reign of HRH QE2 is marked by the touching traditional ritual of one of their players pretending his leg is broken and one of ours having to be pulled away by his teammates for trying to start a scrap. Eventually everyone realises that shouting 'go on Dom, fucking have him' isn't quite in the spirit of remembrance and the players look a bit sheepish as they grasp whats going on and make friends cos getting sent off in a moment of national tribute might look a bit shit.
There's huff and puff but no one is blowing any houses down. We started well, but have struggled to impose ourselves thereafter. Norwich pull out one great move though, swiftly capitalising on our hesitance, blitzing forward in a couple of passes, Pukki draws a good save from Maxwell who has done well today and Marvin (who has also looked much more like his decisive self) clears the follow up off the line...
Players warm up. Madine is ready. He's got a three game sunbed break in his bones and he's Gary Game-changer. Poveda makes way - I like what he tries to do and his directness but he's faded in influence after a good start and sometimes I think he's a bit predictable in that he cuts inside a lot when sometimes the overlap is on and I wish he'd make a defender guess a bit more... Anyway, Gary Madine! C'mon POOL!
Jerry goes wide left and looks spritely finding more of the ball then when marshalled by two good centre backs. He lashes a great effort from distance, cutting inside and and arrowing it at the near post with Krul sprawling to keep it out. Better. A ball into the box, Madine loops a header... is it dropping in? Krul again back peddling and tipping it over at full stretch... C'MON POOL!!!
Yates, he's away! At a moment like this, the sudden energy in the stands is like a match on petrol. The flames rise around the ground. Madine is charging (an energetic trundle, like a big lorry accelerating whilst stuck in third gear) up the middle... Yates knows he needs to get it across for the big lad to be in... He checks slightly, he puts it in, it takes the faintest of touches and deflects behind Madine and rolls away... The flames die down.
Madine has changed the game but now Appleton throws in Carey, Lavery and Hamilton. I like the ethos, but I also really liked what Jerry was doing on the left. He's got the skill to do it, whereas I admire Shayne's effort but I'm less convinced by his technical skill anywhere outside the middle. Anyway... Onwards..
Onwards we go, but the changes lack the desired effect. CJ has a run but just as he gets up to top speed, he slows down again and really, if he's not running very fast with the ball, I'm not sure what function he serves. Lavery wrestles his way into some hopeful positions but can't force anything to happen. Carey looks desperate to find a chance to shoot and score from 30 yards and then run past the Norwich massive celebrating him putting the hurt of being released as a kid to the sword but has to settle for shuttling the ball sideways and scrapping for possession.
The ref has time for about the fifth occasion today to respond to a Norwich player pretending they are dead by booking Marvin for the most ridiculously ruled foul ever. Somehow, despite there being about 80 subs and Norwich spending most of the second half auditioning enthusiastically for parts in a particularly gory episode of Casualty, there is only 3 minutes of injury time. We push, we press. We loop a header over the top where it looks like (from the other end) that Jud and Gaz both crash into each other.
The whistle goes. Football isn't fair.
---
Were we 'good?' - at times, we were. Were we 'bad?' - yes, sometimes we didn't do very well and some of the players didn't cover themselves in glory. Did Dom Thompson (who really didn't have good game) look like he was going to cry at full time and say sorry to all of the ground? Yes. Does that win you points? No. Does it make me feel like he gives a shit? Yes. Does that matter? Does anything matter? Perhaps not, but you've got to find meaning somewhere and for me, a player who gives a fuck gets a lot of leeway over one who doesn't give a shit. Would I pick Jimmy if he was fit? Yes. Does that mean Thompson is deserving of my scorn and derision for a mistake he clearly felt like shite for? Nope.
I liked that for some periods we attacked with pace and certainty. That wasn't the case all the way through, but there were three distinct patches where we really got at a very good team who could probably buy our entire squad with the kind of fees they've paid for a single player. Whatever the politics behind the scenes about budgets and such, the reality is these players are our players till January and today they gave a massive effort and got fuck all in return. The ball doesn't bounce when you're on a run like this, the ref sees a different game to the one that is happening on days like this. We basically matched and at times bettered a much better resourced side and yet, we lost cos that's the way it's breaking for us right now.
Wright was really promising and looks to fit what I think Appleton wants to do like a glove (which isn't to play 5-3-2 and grind things out because everyone is injured). Patino had a mixed bag of a game, but I think the potential is huge. I liked him at 6 even if he didn't quite master it, I like the potential to turn and move the game forward from the quarter back role, not just back to the defence or out to the side. Others may see Jerry not scoring and wonder about him, but I thought Yates played some lovely football today and his little cameo on the left was thought provoking. Marvin was as 'Marvin-like' as I've seen him for ages. It made me wonder, if, possibly, bizarre as the decision to drop Grimmy was, the presence of the more voluble and experienced Maxwell doing a bit of pointing, talking and clapping, let Marvin just play instead of being the captain that I'm not sure he really is.
The shape was much better, the plan was clearer. Some stuff wasn't good but then, I can't be arsed compounding the misery of defeat by going through some kind of ritual blame ceremony till I've worked myself up to believe that the club needs torching with everyone locked inside it.
Sometimes you just lose and that's a bit shit but it happens. In an odd way, I kind of enjoyed the game as much as you can enjoy being really fucked off with the ref, watching daft mistakes and the agony of knowing that no matter what, you're never going to score.
Onward.
Jerry goes wide left and looks spritely finding more of the ball then when marshalled by two good centre backs. He lashes a great effort from distance, cutting inside and and arrowing it at the near post with Krul sprawling to keep it out. Better. A ball into the box, Madine loops a header... is it dropping in? Krul again back peddling and tipping it over at full stretch... C'MON POOL!!!
Yates, he's away! At a moment like this, the sudden energy in the stands is like a match on petrol. The flames rise around the ground. Madine is charging (an energetic trundle, like a big lorry accelerating whilst stuck in third gear) up the middle... Yates knows he needs to get it across for the big lad to be in... He checks slightly, he puts it in, it takes the faintest of touches and deflects behind Madine and rolls away... The flames die down.
Madine has changed the game but now Appleton throws in Carey, Lavery and Hamilton. I like the ethos, but I also really liked what Jerry was doing on the left. He's got the skill to do it, whereas I admire Shayne's effort but I'm less convinced by his technical skill anywhere outside the middle. Anyway... Onwards..
Onwards we go, but the changes lack the desired effect. CJ has a run but just as he gets up to top speed, he slows down again and really, if he's not running very fast with the ball, I'm not sure what function he serves. Lavery wrestles his way into some hopeful positions but can't force anything to happen. Carey looks desperate to find a chance to shoot and score from 30 yards and then run past the Norwich massive celebrating him putting the hurt of being released as a kid to the sword but has to settle for shuttling the ball sideways and scrapping for possession.
The ref has time for about the fifth occasion today to respond to a Norwich player pretending they are dead by booking Marvin for the most ridiculously ruled foul ever. Somehow, despite there being about 80 subs and Norwich spending most of the second half auditioning enthusiastically for parts in a particularly gory episode of Casualty, there is only 3 minutes of injury time. We push, we press. We loop a header over the top where it looks like (from the other end) that Jud and Gaz both crash into each other.
The whistle goes. Football isn't fair.
---
Were we 'good?' - at times, we were. Were we 'bad?' - yes, sometimes we didn't do very well and some of the players didn't cover themselves in glory. Did Dom Thompson (who really didn't have good game) look like he was going to cry at full time and say sorry to all of the ground? Yes. Does that win you points? No. Does it make me feel like he gives a shit? Yes. Does that matter? Does anything matter? Perhaps not, but you've got to find meaning somewhere and for me, a player who gives a fuck gets a lot of leeway over one who doesn't give a shit. Would I pick Jimmy if he was fit? Yes. Does that mean Thompson is deserving of my scorn and derision for a mistake he clearly felt like shite for? Nope.
I liked that for some periods we attacked with pace and certainty. That wasn't the case all the way through, but there were three distinct patches where we really got at a very good team who could probably buy our entire squad with the kind of fees they've paid for a single player. Whatever the politics behind the scenes about budgets and such, the reality is these players are our players till January and today they gave a massive effort and got fuck all in return. The ball doesn't bounce when you're on a run like this, the ref sees a different game to the one that is happening on days like this. We basically matched and at times bettered a much better resourced side and yet, we lost cos that's the way it's breaking for us right now.
Wright was really promising and looks to fit what I think Appleton wants to do like a glove (which isn't to play 5-3-2 and grind things out because everyone is injured). Patino had a mixed bag of a game, but I think the potential is huge. I liked him at 6 even if he didn't quite master it, I like the potential to turn and move the game forward from the quarter back role, not just back to the defence or out to the side. Others may see Jerry not scoring and wonder about him, but I thought Yates played some lovely football today and his little cameo on the left was thought provoking. Marvin was as 'Marvin-like' as I've seen him for ages. It made me wonder, if, possibly, bizarre as the decision to drop Grimmy was, the presence of the more voluble and experienced Maxwell doing a bit of pointing, talking and clapping, let Marvin just play instead of being the captain that I'm not sure he really is.
The shape was much better, the plan was clearer. Some stuff wasn't good but then, I can't be arsed compounding the misery of defeat by going through some kind of ritual blame ceremony till I've worked myself up to believe that the club needs torching with everyone locked inside it.
Sometimes you just lose and that's a bit shit but it happens. In an odd way, I kind of enjoyed the game as much as you can enjoy being really fucked off with the ref, watching daft mistakes and the agony of knowing that no matter what, you're never going to score.
Onward.
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