The ACN Match Review – Birmingham City (h)

The atmosphere

Always a bit worrying to see what could happen after an absolute shellacking the previous week, especially after seeing the knee-jerk hyperbole all over Hashtag NCFC since (and that’s just from myself). But I didn’t pick up on any negativity with perhaps the exception of a Carrow Road Grumble® that, understandably, greeted the half time whistle. Things were still pretty quiet, mind, even when 2-0 up. Perhaps indicative of the chin scratching that has been this season so far, but also because of the high level of comfort we appeared to be in for the rest of the game with a couple of exceptions.

The line-up

It’s hard not to be shocked at the fact both Gibson and Duffy retained their places following the Home Park Nightmare when, were that happened in my Football Manager save, at least one of them was getting the boot. While I will never want to sound too Allardycian in my assessment of the operations of modern football man management, I think a good old-fashioned public dropping to the bench (or even out of the squad entirely) was necessary just to wake a few minds up in the squad.

Hurrah moment

The two goals are literally hurrah moments (i.e. hurrah we’ve scored a goal…) of course, but I was mighty impressed by the fact Wagner didn’t scrap the attacking sub he was going to make before the first goal went in. I have been one of the Frankfurter’s bigger critics over the last six months or so, but this was an excellent, anti-Dean Smithian, move that signaled positive intent that we will hopefully carry on forward with for the rest of the season.

Booooooooo moment

Birmingham are a funny old club in that since they had a historic purple patch in the early 2010s, they seem to only be lurching from one disaster to the next – whether that be impending financial oblivion or a stadium that is literally crumbling away. As a result, I couldn’t help but go into this game thinking we really should be beating them – and beating them comfortably. And so it proved a meh first half didn’t give me much hope, but once Birmingham started getting forward a little bit more early in the second half, they opened up at the back and the key for the lock was found. And it was indeed an excellent second half which means one cannot grumble too much, except for the moment where we switched off at the back and Birmingham nearly pulled one back via hitting the bar.

Hero of the match

Oh my God, let’s not do this again. Fall in love with another young Norwich player who will eventually, as is always the case, break our hearts. But what a player the boy Rowe is turning into. I would love it (love it!) if somehow all conventions of modern football are broken and we build the team around the lad and he decides that he loves Norfolk so much he never wants to even think about leaving – no matter how much some top-six club want to offer him. Yes it’s a dream, but what is football if not for dreams?

Our post-match takeaway

Thank God for Brighton. Their lunchtime loss 6-1 to Aston Villa, despite being the media’s latest pat-on-the-head-aren’t-you-doing-well Premier League darlings, reinforced the idea that bad blips and freak results do happen against form and that a one thrashing a season does not make (hands up who remembers hammering Wolves at home in the season we were relegated to League One). Such is the way of football now, we all need to not let emotions get the better of us and make sensible decisions and try and be philosophical and blah blah, boring blah. But it does still remain true that, despite how fun it might be to have some snap emotional opinions after a heavy defeat, you still get 0 points as much from a 6-2 loss as you do from a 1-0 one.

After an iffy first-half performance, once can’t complain about the game plan, in that as soon as Birmingham started to get nosebleeds from pushing high, we were able to strike twice in quick succession and see the second half out relatively comfortably.