Back from the game

Early season excitement throughout the city was great to see. Weird therefore that the atmosphere around the pubs wasn’t carried into the ground. But hey ho.

The first 25mins we looked very good. Wigan didn’t have a sniff. They were clearly a dog turd side who we should be looking to despatch today. Nunez was looking very lovely on his debut and there was signs of the old Todd returning.

Gibson had other ideas though, and with NcFC sitting on 12 shots to Wigans 1, he decided to have a brain fart and pass the ball straight to the surprised Wigan player, stood in the middle of the pitch 35 yards out. The softest of chances ensued and 1-0 Wigan, undeservedly. Same old Norwich mutters around the crowd.

At this point NCFC lost their way until half time and didn’t look interested in trying to mount a come back.

After half time though the energy of the first 25 mins was back. We dominated the opening exchanges of the second half. That said, there were some dubious ref decisions which can’t be legislated for but some really bad decision making by Gibson, Kenny and Sorenson lead to a few chances for Wigan too. Kenny was anonymous most of the game and Gibson was reminiscent of a poor Gary Docherty at times.

Aarons took his goal very well but the keeper should and could have saved it. He was a live wire most of the match and a positive for NCFC. After the goal we continued to huff and puff but there was a lack of creativity up front. Pukki has lost a yard of pace and what scraps he was feeding off didn’t produce much until the 80th minute when he hit the bar, turning well.

Sinani came on and had no impact, Sara looked like he’s a baller with some deft touches and a lovely diagonal pass. Sergeant…well the less said the better. Two decent chances fluffed, the last in the final minute, one on one with the keeper. He could have taken the ball wider, around the onrushing goalie but failed a lob instead, straight into him.

Dean Smiths tactics need to come under scrutiny. We did start well and moments of Farke ball were evidenced in the first 25mins. But to have a team change at 1-0 down to then relying on the aerial ball against a team with players much bigger than ours, it’s basics. It was ridiculous and the crowd around me were starting to find it so bad it was funny. Free kicks needed more creativity not just lumping it high into the box. We didn’t win a header all game.

Positives
Nunez looked good
Sara looked ok
Krul great save at 0-0
Cantwell looking better again
Omo looked great

Negatives
Gibson terrible
Kenny anonymous
Giani injured
Inability to press a very poor side into submission, we stood off too much

Posted By: Tony Martin on August 6th 2022 at 18:07:44

Message Thread

Reply to Message

In order to add a post to the WotB Message Board you must be a registered WotB user.

If you are not yet registered then please visit the registration page. You should ensure that their browser is setup to accept cookies.

Log in