- Navigating the bitter sting of defeat while dissecting controversial calls.
- Why criticism of Clement’s team selection ignores the reality of injuries.
- Maintaining perspective on progress despite a painful double derby loss.
The Monday morning after a Norwich City derby defeat is often one of the hardest. Aside from the pain of losing, you have to endure the banter that you know you’d be giving if it were the other way round.
Still, this is what we here at ReadNorwich are here to talk about, so here goes.
THAT penalty
I was at an event, so I wasn’t able to follow live and so didn’t see the Norwich City “highlights” until the next morning.
Generally speaking when fans, pundits etc complain about “soft” penalties you look at them and think “Yeah but if it was the other way round you’d be calling for it, be honest.”
In this instance I think if Norwich City had won a penalty like that the Ipswich fans would be calling out “home rule” and getting their boards with the red tape out to explain all the horrible conspiracies that have gone against them this year.
THAT decision
The other part of the discourse I’ve seen has been about how Clement didn’t start Ruairi McConville and Ben Chrisene.
I have to say I feel sorry for Phillipe Clement on this for a few reasons. The first is massively raised expectations. We’ve got results in tough circumstances thanks to an injury-ravaged squad.
This presents a “darned if you do, darned if you don’t scenario.”
If Clement had started McConville, Chrisene or both and they got injured thanks to an over-zealous tackle in the first half, and the result was the same, then everyone would be saying he made a mistake starting them.
A change in perspective
Garbage once sang “I’m only happy when it rains” and there definitely seems to be a handful of fans who come in with this mindset.
Even if a player or manager does well the conversation turns to “how long do you reckon we’ll keep them?”
Now what could be classed as “utilising resources” in a victory becomes a “mistake” in a defeat.
Just short of perfection
Like any Norwich City fan I want to see us beat Ipswich Town and I’m gutted it didn’t happen at the weekend.
It can’t be stressed enough- massive progress has been made after a potential disaster this season.
Now is the test- let’s see the fans and the team dust ourselves down and go again for the next game.
On the Ball, City!
