Norwich 1 Coventry 1 - anyone remember this ?

Played at the end of November 2003. I wrote a match report for the game. There was nothing much to report about in the game, except the last paragraph. Sort of sums up NW's favourites, tactics, dodgy use of subs, etc. NW appears not to have learnt a great deal from then.

Here's the report. If reading the whole thing is too much, skip to the last paragraph.

The wind, driving rain and slippery pitch contributed to the worst home performance of the season. Norwich played well in patches in the first half, but the flowing passing of the games against Walsall and Millwall had deserted them. Huckerby was very subdued ? a couple of jinking runs, but looked, in all honesty, like a player whose loan period was about to come to an end. Crouch tried hard, and was well shackled by Davenport early on but managed to head the ball across for Henderson to score from close range after half an hour. Coventry?s tactics in the first half seemed to be to lob long balls to one of their tall forwards who positioned himself next to our smallest defender Edworthy. It did not work as Green only had one save to make.

The second half started in controversial fashion as the ref gave Coventry a penalty after one their players smacked the ball against Flemings hand from a yard away. No one appealed, but the man in black pointed to the spot and McAllister sent Green the wrong way.

More bookings followed including a second yellow for Mackay after 75 minutes, the unfortunate victim of the card happy ref, whose decisions left both sets of fans bemused.

Norwich could and should have lost the game in the last ten minutes, but Coventry squandered a number of excellent chances. We were grateful for a point when full time came.

The main talking point of the game for me however, was not the ref, but of our use of substitutes and selection and tactics. Mulryne was on the bench yet again, and was eventually brought on for Francis as opposed to Holt. The change was greeted with a chorus of boos. Henderson, who seemed to have lost all confidence early in the second half, played the whole game and although scoring our goal contributed little else apart from passing the ball backwards to Edworthy. Equally as puzzling was our switch to a 4-3-2 formation after Mackay had been sent off, which left the midfield three of McVeigh, Mulryne and Henderson to the mercy of Coventry. If we had been playing well, or chasing the game I could have understood this, but we were hanging on to a point and it almost cost us. I was mystified by it all.

Posted By: KentonCanary, Aug 30, 22:07:22