The ACN Match Review – Chelsea (a)

I’m a happy clapper. From his appointment back in 2017, through the turgid first season, the awful ‘Project Restart’, and the stumbles at the start of our latest title winning campaign, I’ve never doubted that Farke was the right man for the job. I’ve defended him to the point where others have said ‘come on, you’re kidding yourself now.’ I couldn’t imagine a scenario where I’d think he needed to go.

And here we are.

I’ve ditched the regular format of this review – initially I thought I’d make a joke out of ‘Biggest Positive’ by pointing to Lungi’s appearance on the bench, or drop some sarcastic lines under ‘did an Along come Norwich happen?’ Then Chelsea scored their third and it all started to look far more serious.

The 2019/20 season was so frustrating because we knew those players were better than the results were suggesting. They were scoring goals, getting themselves into winning positions, beating Man City, bagging a hat trick. Every loss was soul destroying; we even had that godawful tag ‘best team to finish bottom’ attached to us for a bit. It was that knowledge of what could have been that made such a strange season feel so awful.

This season is different. There have been no signs of progress. The players don’t seem to realise that they’re allowed to tackle, to press, to run faster than a jog. Farkeball is gone and in its place is an unrecognisable system characterised by individuals that look more like children lost in a supermarket searching for their parents than Premier League footballers. We’ve scored one (1) goal from open play. ONE! From a team known for free flowing, attacking football! It’s baffling.

When I reviewed our game against Leicester, I said this: ‘It feels so close. Norwich is currently operating like an orchestra where a few of the instruments are out of tune, or where one of the French Horns is playing on the offbeat. Sort those very fixable issues and you’ve got a sound that’s lovely to listen to and very effective.’ To continue that metaphor, we’re now a band made entirely up of five year olds with recorders. How do you fix an issue that large?

Can they be solved by sacking the manager? By changing the formation? By altering personnel? I don’t know. Time will tell if Stuart Webber thinks he does. There’s plenty of tactical analysis that can be done to explain exactly why Norwich are where we are, but I’m no tactician. I’m just a football fan who found myself in an away end watching the home side barely celebrate because a victory against their opposition was so expected.

As I sit on the train at Liverpool Street trying to find the words to sum up how I feel after that (I left early. I’ve never left early. The appeal of eating a halloumi wrap while sat on South Bank was more appealing than watching Norwich), all I can think about is how awful it feels to be the laughing stock of the league. I HATE hearing Norwich criticised, it’s a real ‘no, this is mine, I can say it’s shit but if you do we’re going to have a problem’ situation. Watching the smug bastards at TalkSport bang on about how we’re a disgrace to English football and all Norwich fans should be rounded up and shot for the crime of daring to think it would be different this time is downright miserable. I’m tired. I’m fed up. I miss Farkeball.

I don’t know what happens from here, and for the first time since I fell in love with football, I almost don’t know if I want to.