Bristol City (a); The Review

Biggest positive

Max Aarons. What a lovely goal. And the fact that Onel came off the bench, leaving a Bristol City defender literally on his arse to cross it made it all the sweeter. Before the game, I’d probably have been disappointed with 2-2, but after the wobbly first half I’d have taken it, and so here we are.

If I’m allowed a second, and with apologies for lacking originality but can we just talk about the fact we had FOUR academy players in the starting line up. Oh my days. It wasn’t the first time but we must never take it for granted. It must never not feel special. All four had decent games, although what was apparently a Canaries’ flu pandemic clearly had an effect on Todd Cantwell by the middle of the second half.

Honourable mention for Marco Stieperman’s goal. It was one of those where you have enough time between the player getting set, the ball moving in the air, and the net bulging for your mind to truly process what happening. He’s going to hit it. That looks nice! Omgjagdgwksoxhehsvayahshhs. It was a slow motion shot on goal, with life only restarting at regular speed for the celebrations.

Weekend Whinge

Fucks sake Alex Tettey. He couldn’t have been more at fault for their goal if he had fired the shot himself. It was a shame because he has been playing okay up until that point and afterwards handled the nonsense from the Bristol fans and manager well.

Moment of the Match

The aforementioned goals were extremely good moments, the latter leaving me with proper nasty knee mischief from the celebrations. But we should take a moment to savour Tim Krul’s two saves around the half hour mark. Each was fairly similar, one handed palming of the ball over the crossbar from foot-like-a-traction-engine like shots. He gets a hard time but he’s got the makings of an extremely good keeper if he can cut out the occasional howler.

Random star performer

Ben Godfrey was solid-er than last week when he was in fact pretty solid. I’m sure I’m biased purely because he’s one of our own but he and Zimmerman were resolute in the face of early pressure and can’t be blamed for goals given up by midfield mistakes.

Farke Watch

Back in the black. Nothing special to report from the touchline beyond the usual, which in itself is pretty special. Some decent windmill arm gestures early on, and what looked some good old fashioned arguing with the fourth official at one point. Tactically, a lot of attention will go on the impact of the subs but I thought he was a touch slow to make the change. After the game he was at pains to put the impact the substitutions made on the players themselves. Likewise the sloppy mistakes and failure to convert our chances has to go on the players rather than on anything to do with the way the team was set up.

Atmosphere rating

Bristol’s a nice away day. The stadium has undergone some substantial redevelopment recently and it’s a decent mix of modern facilities with some thought about the atmosphere and experience. (The away stand hasn’t been redone yet and it’s not great still). Bristol have made some Norwich style attempts to get a singing section going, in the far corner from where we stood. They had a drum and the flags when the teams came out were a really good effort.

Despite some strong pockets of noise, Norwich only really got going in the spells after each of our goals. The wind, rain and slightly stop start performance hindered things, and being spread out across the back half of the whole stand wasn’t ideal. Even the “12 days of Huckerby” didn’t really take off. Must try harder at Ewood Park.

Summary

There was a bit of feeling that Boxing Day came early today, and Farke’s explanation after the game that several players had been laid low with flu explained a lot. Before the game, we should’ve been disappointed with 2-2, but Bristol stepped up their performance and we were off the pace so we can happily take the point and go on to Blackburn.