Saturday is a day that history will be made on. Somebody will be a hero, somebody will be a goat. 27,000 fans will be living and dying on every moment of the ninety minutes on Saturday. Both sets of supporters will be in Carrow Road, the atmosphere will be alive, and millions will watch all over the world. Here is what people can expect in what is our biggest game in years.
1. The Start
The start to this game is absolutely vital. I think we can all agree that we got off to a slow start last Saturday, and it nearly doomed us. It took us a while to really grow into the game, and we can’t afford to let that happen again. Who knows how the game would have gone if Ruddy wouldn’t have made that double save in the first ten minutes. This whole tie might be different, so we need to get out of the blocks quickly. The last thing we need is to concede early and have the pressure piled on.
2. Kill The Game
Let’s say we get off to a good start, and then we are up at halftime. If we park the bus, they can get back into the game. It all comes down to them winning headers and getting flick-ons. It is a boring style, but with their height, it is not hard to score from it. The longer this game goes on undecided, the pressure will mount on us as the home side and the favorites. They will feed on that, so we need to end this game as quickly as we can. It needs to be start to finish attacking football from us without letting our foot off the gas even once.
3. It Only Takes One
Ipswich play a highly boring, lacking quality, just awful to watch long ball. You could eliminate their entire midfield and nothing would change. Long ball from the defenders to the strikers, and they score. But in a game where you can just score one goal, and then park the bus, that might just work. They only need one goal to possibly advance. We could dominate the entire match, but they score a stoppage time winner off a long ball. It is just that simple. Our defenders need to be on high alert at all times. One long ball that starts out looking like nothing could be the difference between Wembley and the Championship next season. I cannot imagine losing to them on something so simple, but it is certainly possible.
4. Penalties
Here is another scenario that I don’t even want to put in my mind, but it is worth mentioning. The only thing worse than losing to Ipswich is losing to Ipswich on penalties. I think we can all agree on that. Norwich scored four of their seven penalties, while Ipswich tucked home two of out of three this season. Advantage them. As for penalties saved, Ruddy has saved one of eight he has faced this season, while Ipswich have only conceded one all season, but it was scored by Nakhi Wells of Huddersfield back in October. Advantage us. Should we get that far, who would the penalty takers be? I would have to think that Hoolahan, Johnson, and Jerome would be on the list, but who will step up? They would send Murphy to the spot, but I do not know who else could to the job for them. These stats are all nice to have, but at the end of the day a penalty shootout is a coin toss, so we need to avoid that at all costs.
5. Do Your Part
It is no fluke that we have this game at home. We finished eight points ahead of Ipswich in the table, and we worked hard to earn that 2nd leg at home. Don’t let that effort go to waste. If you are going to the game, please sing loudly. I cannot go to the match, and only 27,000 people have the golden ticket. Wear yellow and green, sing really loudly, and be proud to be a Norwich fan. I can sing all I want, but the players won’t hear me from thousands of kilometers away, but they can hear you. Don’t be a passenger. Outside of scoring a goal or clearing an Ipswich shot off the line, you can make the biggest difference in this game. Be loud, be proud, be yellow.
It should be a classic game. One that is talked about for decades to come. I am already so nervous as I type this 60 hours and 40 minutes until kickoff. We are going to win this, I feel it. One game for glory. On The Ball City!
[statsfc-score-predictor key=”n3hIsXGmdJ6AnSMKzUo6i09cnqzZIPNpYYb7QNmF” team=”Norwich”]
