S.O.S: NORWICH

On Tuesday night we headed down to "England's arse", East Anglia, to face the yellow scoundrels that are Norwich.

We went looking for our first league double over the canaries since I was one year old. I'll leave that maths up to you. Although Norwich haven't had a great run of form recently and currently sit in 11th, they do have the league's top goalscorer in the form of Borja Sainz on the books. Remember him? The spitty one. Leeds dropping points have meant we've ever-so-slightly closed the gap on third and we've moved further from 5th by Boro doing Boro things. We went into this match unbeaten in our last 11 midweek matches. But could we do it on a brisk Tuesday evening in East Anglia?

When a group of Dutch and Flemish migrants, known as “The Strangers" (canny name for a band or a dull Norwegian drama) settled in Norwich they introduced weaving and canary breeding to the city. Hence the bird thing. We just found a cat.

Team news updates by RLB confirmed we another addition to the pile of knackered hamstrings. Romaine is out for the foreseeable. When asked how long, Regis met this query with a very French shrug. It's worth reminding ourselves that going into this one, we had: 21 wins, 12 draws, and 7 losses. Not bad but we couldn't afford to drop a single point over the next 8 matches. But you all know that. Hopefully we'd find some energy after a few 'flat' games.

Team news an hour out showed Hjelde had fought his way into the team with some impressive sub performances and Browne had kept his with some equally decent turns. Aleksic was also being given a run out. I get the impression RLB is a big fan of him. The most surprising part of the line up was the lack of Jobe. At the time of writing I don't have an explanation. Perhaps because the man-sized teen has played in nearly every game this season. I suppose time will tell. We would also get to see whether birthday boy Tommy Watson had what it takes mentally to see the season out. A couple of goals as a parting gift would go down nicely. While he plays in red and white we should make as much (positive) noise as we can for the lad. Many happy returns, Tommy.

Completely normal 19:45 kick-off.

For the first 30 seconds we opened with a hectic press. It was brief though. Very brief. Ok, it lasted about 30 seconds. Mayenda bullied into the box and showed positive early signs. But that's all we would see for nearly an hour. We drew the first corners of the game allowing Norwich to pester us. Captain Dan fluffed his lines leading to Sainz one on one with Patto, but our keeper made light work of it. We seemed content to sit back while the yellows pushed harder. The Black Cats needed to get their claws in. However, by the 20 minute mark the stats showed the Canaries were all over us. We'd had no shots on goal and had only been in the home team's box once. By the half hour mark we'd managed less than 100 passes. Sorry for going on about stats but there's nowt else to write about. If sitting this deep is a genuine tactic then fair enough but all it's doing is adding odds in the opponent's favour. I know RLB loves statistics but we simply needed to up those numbers.

We eventually got into their box around 5 minutes from half time and nearly caught Norwich off guard as they attempted to spread it out from the back. We seemed to have lulled them in to a false sense of security by playing like we weren't going to score for 40 minutes. As we got even closer to half time we started to come alive. Slightly. Trai and Milan linked up well for a second time to get a ball to the front post. That was the closest we got on goal all half.

Half time arrived. No shots on goal. Leeds were winning and the Blades were losing. We should definitely have had the energy to come out all guns blazing. I hoped someone had packed a hair dryer...

The second half started. No changes. At first we seemed to be more compact, pressing higher and looking for some decent link-up play. Norwich where beginning to look a bit baffled. If we had a plan it better be a good one. 'Super subs to the rescue' I hoped. The Carnies started to peck at us and drew some silly fouls. They actively harassed Patto after he collected a tricky cross from the left. We won a free kick in the attacking third and Tommy fizzed a great ball in that somehow went past everyone.

To further the home side frustrations they had a goal disallowed when their number 11 jumped into Patto. It even looked like the attacker reached for the ball too. Calm down mate.

60 minutes in - still no shots on target.

61 minutes in - shot on target! Technically. A well worked run by Tommy down the left saw a headed clearance from a Mayenda shot. After some shuffling about on the bench we were met by a triple change. Issy, Roberts and Enzo in exchange for Hjelde, Watson and Milan. A statement of intent to say the least.

This made an difference immediately. Enzo and Roberts linked up well, with the former showing he could not only break ankles but also win the ball back too. After a lovely switch of play, Eli saw himself through on goal and won us our first corner of the game, 73 minutes in. Ten minutes from time Harrison Jones replaced an exhausted Rigg so he could get up early for his paper round. We tripled our corners shortly after as we finally began to test the mustardmen. Borja Sainz tried a last gasp dive whilst not being through on goal and then it was game over.

Full time: Nil nil. Well, at least we didn't lose and no one got spat on this time. Unbeaten in three with clean sheets to boot. We'd shown promise towards the end when the changes where made. Perhaps we should start like that next time as opposed to parking the bus from the get go. After all, Regis does look like he's waiting for a bus most of the time. Positives? The last 25 mins. Negatives? The first hour. We didn't conceded but we all know we're better than that. No points dropped and we're now guaranteed a spot in the playoffs.

Keep the faith,

GPD