So, the Canaries’ cup run will commence under the floodlights of Carrow Road when the referee’s whistle pierces the night come 19:45 this evening. The opponents? League One side, Crawley Town will be entertained by our lads in the second round of the Capital One Cup – the competition which Norwich found themselves crashing out of after a 4-0 slamming at the hands of The Red Devils in the last 16. Coincidently, Crawley share this nickname with the Manchester side, yet the notion of a repeat of the aforementioned score line doesn’t bear entertaining.
What’ll be particularly intriguing is how we approach the Cup competitions this year. Considering the fact that this’ll be the first time in three seasons where our manager (regardless of their respective abilities as a chef) will have the freedom to bring forward the metaphorical Cup saucepan from the back burner, as we’re no longer having to concentrate all of our efforts on keeping our head above water in the league. I for one though imagine that, for all his faults, Hughton cooked a mean Shepard’s pie. And much like a Shepard’s pie, not only was all of the meat of our team asphyxiated beneath a dense layer of his tactically laid potato, but (much like our boys when they played under him) the end product was totally inappropriate for the level of competition.
I believe that tonight’s starting XI from Adams’ will give us a good indication of how we’ll approach the first few rounds of the tournament. Coming into this fixture with 9 points from our last 3 games, I expect to see a fair amount of personnel alternations but relatively little, if any, changes tactically. It would appear to myself, and I imagine the bulk of Yellows fans, that his strategy for games is working consistently right now and varying it has more chance of being a hindrance than a help.
On the injury front, it’s a certainty that Ryan Bennett will miss out having damaged his ankle in the Canaries’ 1-0 victory in the East Anglian Derby on Saturday (just thought I’d slip that in there). Meanwhile, Howson and Hooper have a better chance of making the squad but, given the limited gravitas of this outing, look unlikely to be risked. Martin Olsson is another notable absentee as he’ll serve the final game of his 4 match suspension.
Line up wise, it’s immensely difficult to predict with any real degree of accuracy who will feature in the starting XI; so instead I’ve chosen the 11 players I’d select and we’ll see how close I am to Adams’.
PREDICTED LINE UP
As I previously stated, I believe the formation and tactics will remain the same while a few of our key players are rested for Saturday’s game against Bournemouth. I reckon Rudd will start in goal as he’s now effectively our second string keeper in the eyes of many since his return. I’m almost 100% sure that Cuellar will start since Adams will be keen to unveil his new signings (Jerome being in the same boat) and I sincerely hope that it’ll be Bassong partnering him – even if for no other reasons than Turner needs to be fully fit for Saturday and I fear if he were to partner Cuellar there’d be no pace in our central defence. We all know Whittaker will start (be it on the left or the right) but I for one am praying that won’t be the case. I don’t rate him, plain and simple and I feel that not addressing the glaring need for a RB to replace him is the only area we’ve failed on in this window – that’s of course providing we sign heavily linked Club Brugge central midfielder: Vadis Odjidja-Ofoe, an individual I’d be ecstatic to see pull on the yellow and green.
VERDICT
With respect to the players available to the Canaries’ opposition tonight, they really don’t have anyone of note and Adams’ will demand nothing but a professional performance resulting in a convincing victory. That said, it’s important that we don’t overlook Crawley, or any team before playing them because as we know all too well, in the cups, anything can happen… *cough* Luton *cough*.
