After what can only be described as utter daylight robbery on Tuesday night when the Canaries lost 1-0 at the hands of a ‘resilient’ Charlton side at Carrow Road, Norwich fans would’ve been hoping for the boys to get fully back on track in their second trip to the ground this week. The opposition, newly promoted Rotherham, had made an admirable start to life in the Championship given the circumstances – having accumulated 11 points from 10 games prior to this clash. That said, it was certainly a match that the majority of Norwich fans were banking on emerging from with a win, especially with the calibre of our team’s midweek performance.
For the first time in a few games, Adams elected to make a significant change to the semi-concrete starting XI – opting to bring Howson into the fold at the expense of Tettey’s starting spot. Hooiveld also made his return in place of Whittaker who featured against Charlton. The issue of Howson was a bridge that we knew we’d have to cross eventually, but I for one (while an avid Howson fan) was surprised to see Tettey being the point of the Tettey-Johnson-Hoolahan triangle to be replaced. Judging by tweets during the match from fans it seems that I wasn’t alone in this astonishment. Tettey, in my opinion, has been consistently head and shoulders above any other player who’s stepped on the pitch in yellow and green so far this season – a bombshell of a statement I’m aware, but one which I genuinely believe to be true. He shares Johnson’s ‘engine room’ quality, while also being excellent in the tackle, a far more accomplished passer and I feel a superior reader of the play. The age old footballing saying: ‘the best defensive midfielders are the ones you don’t notice’ rings true with Alex, and with the benefit of having seen how the match played out I feel vindicated in my would have been decision to keep him and Johnson together. Howson would have featured in my first eleven today, but in place of Hoolahan – a player who (while excellent at times) is not a ubiquitous starter in my opinion and I feel often slows the pace of games which is not conducive to the fast starts to matches which the lads should be striving for.
Regardless, Hoolahan started and the opening ten minutes were relatively poor from the home side and Matt Derbyshire came close for Rotherham before the 15 minute mark. After that, the Yellows began to find their stride and dominated large spells of the play but yet again failed to take their chances. Without wanting to force this issue, the general passing without Tettey (all be it we had the bulk of possession) was poor as much of it seemed purely to retain possession – there were few incisive through balls from the middle of the park, next to no passes being slid diagonally out wide for the likes of Redmond. As a result of this we perhaps pressed the Millers a little too hard and after Grabban’s header and both of Jerome’s attempted rebounds being saved it was a matter of seconds before the away team broke and won a penalty when Ruddy took down Derbyshire inside the box – receiving a yellow card for his efforts. Paul Green dispatched the spot kick and Adams was once again left to bring out the hairdryer at half time.
The following 30 minutes of football saw Norwich crank up the proverbial gas mark having chance after chance but being unable to put any of them away. It was at 75 minutes when Adams switched to a 3-5-2, bringing Josh Murphy on for Hooiveld making it the Canaries’ second substitution of the afternoon (Lafferty from Hoolahan at the hour mark.) While certainly unorthodox, it had the desired effect as moments later Jerome turned in a Lafferty free kick which nearly shattered the post to secure Norwich a point at full time.
While there were unquestionable positives from the game, we have to identify with the fact that we’ve dropped 5 points out of a possible 6 in one week – a statistic that isn’t good enough. Plain and simple. Moreover, we still seem unable to perform at our highest level in the opening 45 minutes which isn’t so much concerning as it is frustrating. Obviously the score line at full time is the only thing that really matters but I don’t believe for a second that these lethargic starts of late are a part of Adams’ tactics and so work evidently needs to be done. It’s Fulham away next week, our bogey team. If ever there was an opportunity to break undesirable trends…
