Norwich fan David Wyatt went to the Cambridge friendly and graciously picked out a few thoughts that stuck out whilst at Abbey Stadium.
1) The fan reaction to Ricky van Wolfswinkel was fantastic. When he was warming up there was a chant, ‘Ricky give us a wave’. He had a smile and waved which was followed by, ‘If Ricky scores we’re on the pitch’. Finally there was a standing ovation when he was substituted for Conor McGrandles in the 118th minute. There seemed to be a mutual respect there and it was great to see.
2) Harry Toffolo liked to get forward. He was all over the place Friday night, but in a good way. Alex Neil likes his fullbacks to get forward and Toffolo showed a willingness to get into the opponent’s half on a regular basis. He got a well deserved goal and put in some fantastic crosses. He’s got a great left foot but he certainly doesn’t like to use his right.
3) Personally, I thought both Michael Turner and Ryan Bennett struggled in large parts. Turner was sloppy on the ball and looked like a human statue. Bennett lost the majority of headers and just didn’t look comfortable. He had all the tools but I don’t have a great deal of confidence in his ability.
4) When Jacob and Josh Murphy came on, they injected some much needed pace in the team. With a midfield of Vadis Odjidja-Ofoe, Bradley Johnson, Youssouf Mulumbu and Graham Dorrans, we were static in the first half. Bringing Jacob on gave us a little direct play which resulted in City getting into more promising positions.
5) Louis Thompson looks like a decent player but I doubt we’ll be seeing him at left-back in the future. He was a must need there with the lack of depth, but his future isn’t in his defensive ability.
6) I really thought Ricky had a good game. His movement was good and so was his work rate. He got his goal which was straight forward, but he showed a lot of collection to set Toffolo up and played some nice balls down the wing. Not sure that deep striker role played into his game as Lewis Grabban was the out-and-out striker, but he performed well.
7) We didn’t see any new potential signings wandering around the stadium.
