Rotherham United (a), The ACN Review

Biggest Positive 

Though we all rightly whinge about the tenner payment, we definitely got that back with interest. In fact, we got it back from just the opening 25 minutes of a match that was played at the speed of light. We even had the red card in the second half and a bit of a scrap thrown in for an extra bonus. “Match that had everything” is a bit of a cliche but there’s not many games where you get a red card, a bit of a fight, an own goal, a disallowed goal, a couple of missed open goals, a penalty save and a last minute penalty winner.

Weekend Whinge

Rotherham’s opener was an absolute travesty of a goal to concede. It’s almost impossible to put into words how bad the defending was. While fingers will be pointed at Krul, Hanley froze to the spot and provided a classic example of “bad Norwich defending” that will no doubt find itself on a Rewind Norwich showreel in years to come. In These Strange Times™, to see that some things never change with regards to Norwich defending is almost comforting.

Moment of the Match

Where the hell do I start? The Rotherham opener? The penalty save? Rotherham missing the open goal early in the first half? Norwich missing four chances in the first half? Norwich’s equaliser? The red card and Skipp nearly having his leg broken? Clarke Robertson missing his chance with ten to go?  The block on the line? Blackman’s save from Hugill and the subsequent corner? The last minute penalty?! There was no “moment” of the match here. This was the sort game that normally only exists when you’re messing around playing FIFA on the Playstation.

Random Star Performer

Despite the cockup for the Rotherham goal, I think I’ll go with Krul as I don’t think I have ever been in the situation before, as a Norwich fan, where our goalkeeper saves so many penalties. Krul’s ability to do this allows us to pick up several extra points through the season, and yet again he halted a bad situation becoming a disastrous one.

Farke Watch

I mentioned in my last report that the team news announcement has now becomea live streamable event and we had more drama at T-1 hour today. Hoooogul and Idah’s call up, and a generally refreshing look gave course for some unusual optimism on Norwich socials. All was set for an Along Come Norwich start then…

Summary

This was an insane game of football which is almost impossible to put into words. I feel sorry for the Proper Journalists who are writing the match reports as there’s no way you can accurately describe what happened in your standard 1,500 words. The bottom line is, I guess, that we scraped a win against Rotherham in a game where we didn’t exactly play well. Whether you take that as a positive or a negative sign for the rest of our season is a good judge on your level of optimism on football and on life.