It was at quarter past twelve this afternoon that Carrow Road played host to the culminating game of Norwich City’s regular season – one which, without reminiscing too much in this article, has been extraordinary to say the least. Realistically, nothing was riding on this game aside from determining which team we would face in the playoff semi-finals (Ipswich) and so all of us at Read Norwich were expecting a drastically altered starting XI so as to conserve the fitness of players with more key roles in the side in the run up to these crucial next few games. In actuality, Alex Neil elected to change very little personnel wise, adopting only Elliott Bennett at the RB position (in which he was excellent) and O’Neil in place of Tettey as the only real surprise on the team sheet.
Norwich City starting XI:
The match began slowly, with neither team really grasping a hold of the play and dominating for the first 10 minutes. It was at about this time that Fulham were forced into the first impactful element of the game with a required substitution of RB, Tim Hoogland in place of Nikolay Borudov. It was at this point that the home side managed to establish somewhat of a foothold in the game, courtesy on increasingly good spells of passing and a couple of sighters on Bettinelli’s goal courtesy of Bradley Johnson and soon after Jonny Howson. It took until just after the half an hour mark for the Canaries to fire themselves into the lead – Player of the Season, Bradley Johnson tapping home a Hooper assist from the centre of the box in front of an ecstatic Barclay stand.
Buoyed by a rocking stadium and a confidence sapped Fulham back line, an electric Nathan Redmond found himself in space on the left wing after receiving a pass from Olsson. Ever on the offensive, the England U21 cut inside and placed a shot which nestled almost perfectly in the bottom corner of the Fulham goal – parallel with his strike against Southampton last season in the Premier League. From there on the youngster was bursting with confidence and was, I would say, brilliant for the remainder of the game and was unlucky not to find the net again.
The Yellows finished the first half strong and both sides emerged unchanged after the break. Hugo Rodallega had a strike saved almost immediately play had commenced, but after that Norwich began to gradually cement their grip over the game once again – eventually leading up to the substitutions of Jonny Howson for Graham Dorrans and Wes Hoolahan for the previously rare feature on the field, Vadis Odjidja-Ofoe. It was at this point that the home side transitioned from a solid control of the game to nigh on domination with Odjidja-Ofoe playing in the hole being seemingly conducive to a freer flowing, high pressing attacking game.
Regardless, it took an additional twenty minutes before the Canary contingent would erupt around the ground once more as Graham Dorrans poked home an incisive Redmond pass for the Canary’s third goal. Amidst the resulting celebrations, Fulham’s Matt Smith beat Ruddy with a shot that seemed to come from nowhere to dirty the home side’s previously clean sheet. In the dying moments of the match some five minutes later Bradley Johnson slashed a thunderbolt low and hard to the left of Bettinelli which made the score look further in our favour. It was maybe a few minutes from the whistle when the Cottagers won a corner which resulted in Bradley Johnson scoring his third goal of the match, only this time it was an own goal – one that was met with light hearted chants from those in yellow and green around the ground of “He scores when he wants, he scores when he wants! Oh Bradley Johnson, he scores when he wants!” which capped off a historic 4-2 win over the Lilywhites; our first victory in 26 years.
