🎵 It’s getting better…
The words of Mama Cass (one for kids), but applies perfectly to Philippe Clement’s City, as they continue to successfully negotiate every hurdle thrown in their path.
Today’s win at the King Power has to be the Canaries’ best away performance of the season. All on a day when Clement was shorn of no fewer than 15 players; all of whom, if fit, could be perceived bona fide first-team options.
I’ll spare you a long-form piece on my take on this afternoon’s events in Leicester (that will be available elsewhere [tomorrow morning] if you’re a sucker for punishment), but instead I’ll give you what I hope will become a ReadNorwich staple: five thoughts.
Clement’s gold dust…
Just when you think he’s run out of it, he finds more to sprinkle. We had no right to go to the King Power and win. Nor did we even have the right to go there and produce a performance, but under Clement’s tutelage, with a squad so threadbare it screamed 3-0 defeat, we only bl–dy did it.
To a man, it was masterful. Total domination against a team that has so much attacking quality, one has to question why, even with a six-point deduction, they are not in the top six.
But they barely laid a glove on City. An away-day masterclass.
A Field day…
Okay, so Sky Sports were seduced by Ali Ahmed’s goal and stats, and fair play – he was more effective as the game wore on – but Kenny and his mate were imperious in the engine room.
On paper, a central midfield pairing of Ollie Skipp and Harry Winks should more than hold its own against any equivalent pairing in the Championship. Let’s face it, we’ve spent plenty of time wishing that Skipps’ loan had been made permanent, but who’d have swapped them for McLean and Sam Field today?
Answer: no one.
Field has to be the most understated footballer in the history of professional football, but that lad can play. Nowt fancy but seven or eight out of ten every single week and the perfect foil for the Mayor. My man of the match.
Another clean sheet…
Even with Mad Vlad doing his best to offer the Foxes a tap-in, they still couldn’t breach a defence that just gets better and better and better.
Jose Cordoba and Ruairi McConville have made the centre-back positions their own, and who’d have thought that bringing Harry Darling into the side to replace either of them would now represent a downgrade, but it does.
The importance of having a solid partnership in the centre of defence cannot be underestimated, and they now start to really look the part as a pair. And are ably assisted by Kellen Fisher and Ben Chrisene, both of whom must be playing the best football of their lives.
Something that could probably be said of every player under Clement.
Did I mention I believe him to be a footballing genius?
Parislimane
Take your pick. They both do it differently – very differently – but both are doing it quite brilliantly.
For an hour, Paris Maghoma ran the show. Dropped shoulders, back heels, drag-backs, reverse passes … the lot. But all performed within the structure Clement demands and with the basics, when required, done to perfection.
But he has to be managed. He’s not played a full 90-minutes since 2024, apparently, and he’s so valuable to us right now, an hour of Paris is about right.
But do we see a drop-off when Anis enters the fray? Of course not. The threat doesn’t diminish. Not one bit. It increases. And he pings one in from 20 yards.
Of course he does.
Bad day for the fist-pump king
Those watching on Sky Sports will, I suspect, have been quietly impressed with the punditry skills of one Chris Martin. Eloquent and knowledgeable are two things I never expected to write about our son of Beccles, but he was both.
And he was nice about us and, I believe, once called us “we”. I like it when that happens.
What I’m not so keen on is Luke Chambers – aka Suffolk’s very own fist-pump king – when asked to pass comment on a Norwich City performance.
Of course, ‘Chambo’ makes no attempt to hide his glee when commenting on a stinker of a performance (he will have loved September to November), but struggles when, like today, we win and play well.
With a face like a slapped buttock, the dear fellow couldn’t bring himself to admit we played well and opted instead to forensically dissect Leicester’s terrible defending. Tedious.
Luckily, good old Chrissy was on hand to restore balance (another thing I didn’t expect to be writing).
