The ACN Match Review – Crystal Palace (a)
Ffion Thomas made the trip to Selhurst Park to watch our semi-annual capitulation against Crystal Palace. Here's her thoughts
Biggest positive
It’s always nice to see a yoof make their debut, and Jon Rowe looked lively when he came on.
Biggest negative
We are the wrong club for Billy Gilmour and he is the wrong player for us in the position he’s being asked to play, but I see no evidence that he’s not trying and the chant targeted at him was unfair, unnecessary and, with the media attention it has received, pretty embarrassing. Even worse was the news that emerged on Wednesday about racist comments towards players having been made both in the stadium and online. A grim day for our club, but well done and thank you to the Norwich fan/s in the away end who reported the perpetrator.
Funniest moment
For a 3-0 defeat this was a pretty amusing experience from where I was standing with stratospheric levels of gallows humour in evidence, but I personally enjoyed the disembodied HAL 9000-esque voice of Selhurst Park’s VAR announcements.
Norwich’s best player
The pitch invader showed commendable levels of desire to get into the box, though his shooting was wayward.
Did an along come Norwich happen?
Of course it did. Playing a side missing all their best players on the same day, we too, are missing all our best players. See also: Lungi missing a very presentable chance and 20 seconds later conceding a game-killing second goal.
What was the atmosphere like?
Being 3-0 down within 42 minutes probably helped it as the crowd jumped straight to the gallows humour, even winning over the Palace fans with plenty of “Let’s pretend we scored a goal”. Surprisingly few left early, at least where I was.
Summary
Yes, there is the obvious mitigating factor of a strong argument that this game should not have gone ahead. But Palace’s own injury and Covid problems meant that they were there for the taking, and we barely gave them anything to worry about. Throughout December we have looked fundamentally incapable of both scoring and keeping them out at the other end, and there’s still half the season to go. If you don’t laugh you’ll cry. See you in 2022.
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Comments
The ACN Match Review – Arsenal (h)
27/12/21
A brilliant 0-5 loss against Arsenal awaited Maddie Mackenzie, who left for Carrow Road yesterday more out of duty that hope or expectation. Ç'est la Norwich...
Let's Pretend We've Scored A Goal
30/12/21
After so many big recent highs, we are quickly at an extremely low point again as Norwich City fans - so much so it is easy to feel completely disillusioned by everything. As Nick Hayhoe describes though, there's still tiny crumbs of joy in supporting our beloved club if you know where to look...we just need to hang in there.
As a Palace fan I would just like to say the banter between the two sets of fans was fantastic. In what was a tame game for both teams it’s nice that you made the most of your journey and your humorous chants of “let’s pretend we scored a goal” and “sign him up” to the pitch invader we’re favourites. Keep the faith and good luck for the remainder of the season.