I've only been to the Preston game this season so far and will be there on Saturday, so clearly we'll win...
You're welcome everyone...
Bad news is my son and my nephew (2 different people btw, before you think there's interbreeding going on in my family) aren't too keen on attending the next game, so that will probably be a defeat.
Funny game, but a good watch. For the first two minutes I thought Norwich looked like us under Brendan/Laudrup. They passed it beautifully around our press and looked like they were going to create chance after chance. I thought we were in for a long day. Then we scored with our first attack and our press worked really well from then on.
Could easily have been a draw or Norwich win given the chances they had, but we rode our luck and defended well in general. The amount of shots we blocked was impressive and I do think Luke has got us playing well defensively. Until the last 10 minutes, most of Norwich's chances came from us giving the ball away (primarily Vig, Darling, and Franco).
The challenge will be adding a cutting edge to the system (when we play like we did today rather than the passing for the sake of it football we sometimes produce). Cullen and Cooper were a vital part of the defence, working their socks off and not giving their defenders a second of peace. You could see the impact it had by the second half, as the Norwich defenders took every opportunity to leave a mark on them. Unfortunately they don't offer much of an attacking threat.
Franco must have been even more annoying to the Norwich players. What a player when the opposition has the ball, closing down all over the place, winning back possession, blocking passes, just superb. As for when he has the ball, let's be generous and say he's on a learning curve. He had 2 poor passes intercepted leading to great Norwich chances. We missed him badly when he went off (I know others have said it, but I'm not a fan of Luke's subs. Taking off Franco, Cullen and Cooper at the same time had a massive impact and we were lucky to get away with it)
I thought that was Eom's best game yet, showed some lovely touches and worked hard. Ronald was his usual self, moments of brilliance and always worrying the Norwich defenders, while his end product was as varied as usual. The back-pass to Vig from inside the Norwich half when he didn't see the Norwich player behind Vig almost gave me a heart attack mind.
Key looked more like his last season self and Ben had a fine game with that goal-saving tackle being the highlight. Grimes actually played in midfield and looked far better for it. Vig made some good saves and looks like a fine keeper for us, even if the distribution is still scattershot (I partly blame Luke for this mind).
The ref either had a really good game or was a bit of a homer. Until injury time anyway when he missed some big fouls in their half.
Keep playing like that and we'll be solid mid-table this season.
