Birmingham (a) – The ACN Review

Biggest Positive

Six points from two trips to St Andrews on a football pitch that belonged in the 1980s. City’s playing style is not wholly reliant on the quality of the playing surface, but it certainly helps. Yet Farke’s charges won’t ever compromise on their principles and although it wasn’t vintage Farkeball, Norwich kept trying to play.

Midweek moan

As much as the Buendia to Pukki masterclasses are reminding us all just how brilliant our Championship winning campaign was, the defending for Birmingham’s equaliser was also pure 2018/19. Dawdling on the ball, trying in vain to recover your mistake and a failure to react to the rebound. It was all very avoidable and quite rightly angered the head coach.

Moment of the match

Like a Wetherspoons day drinker heading to the bar at 9am on 21st June, Lukas Rupp furiously hurtled towards the hosts’ goal unchallenged. Yet instead of just downing his first pint, he unselfishly passed it to Skipp to open his Norwich account, and the sight was joyful. It would have been so easy for Rupp to try and snaffle his first goal in yellow and green, but squaring it was undoubtedly the better option.

Skipp’s loan spell has worked out even better than City and his parent club could have hoped for and whatever happens next season the Tottenham man will be a Premier League star. A goal was just reward for his efforts this season and definitely more deserved than a few of his recent man of the match awards.

Also special mention for Pukki’s opener, a wonderful finish from a man possessed. The frontman’s hot run of form meant that the confidence flowing through him dictated he shot instinctively at an improbable angle, rather than looking to square the ball, and this caught Etheridge out in the process.

Random Star Performer

Compared to recent weeks, this wasn’t Todd Cantwell’s finest performance. Probably a seven out of ten, nothing spectacular, yet a decent contribution for the team.

But when things aren’t quite clicking Todd now, there’s not the usual suspects on social media calling him out and there’s probably one reason for that – endeavour.

Forget crowing about your Puma boot deals, celebrity mates, insta stories that I’m too old to understand and anything else you may find mildly annoying about the Dereham man (although for the record I don’t actually find any of these annoying). When he’s working hard, showing for every pass, tracking the runners and charging towards defenders to win the ball back for the team then it’s much harder to not forgive some profligacy in front of goal or a misplaced pass.

Cantwell is supremely talented. Now he’s added that extra dimension with a level of consistency not seen before in his City career, the sky’s the limit.

A word for Oliver Langford too. There has been some, putting it very generously, wildly inconsistent officiating in the Championship this term. While that is preferable to the shambles that is VAR, it still doesn’t excuse some of the nonsense we’ve witnessed. Langford showed a fair degree of common sense, played advantages where appropriate, got all the big calls right and just let the game flow. That’ll do for me.

Farke Watch

After a below par first half where City were a little fortunate to be level, Farke apparently used this as a rare opportunity to have some stern words with his team. The result seemed to work and Norwich were pretty dominant after the interval. Yet with the game drifting a little, Onel’s early introduction proved to be a masterstroke from the gaffer. Pukki’s second strike came just as Norwich were starting to assert themselves again, with Hernandez’s strength and more direct style playing a big part in this.

The Cuban’s influence on the game had been growing – possibly as a result of him being given more time to play his way into the match – and it ultimately indirectly led to the winning moment as he bundled his way into the box before letting Emi to Pukki be a thing again.

Farke then decided to hook Hernandez, much to the winger’s temporary bemusement, until the head coach (probably) tipped him a knowing wink as his replacement Jordan Hugill set in motion Norwich’s third goal.

Kudos to Farke for getting his side back on the front foot when previously he’s trusted his team to work it out themselves.

Summary

The relentless nature of this Norwich team means they continue to pick up points, even when they’re not at their best, that’s possibly the mark of champions. The fact they can dig in, be pretty comfortable in possession on a poor surface and come up with three goals to win what was still a difficult game is testament to everything Webber and Farke have rebuilt this season. 10 points clear, albeit probably temporarily, is an imperious position to be in with 14 games to go.