Telegraph report

This from the Telegraph.

If anyone doubts our support , read on.

Telegraph report. by Seablue on 20:08 - Nov 28 with 107 views First Reply

The police demanded an early kick-off to take the sting out of this ?Old Farm Derby?. But the lunchtime start turned into a Sunday roasting for Roy Keane?s Ipswich Town, who suffered their heaviest defeat in a league match against Norwich City. That one stung, for sure.
The greater part of a crowd of 26,532 ? the highest since Carrow Road became an all-seat stadium ? enjoyed the sort of script that only a Norwich diehard could have written.
There was a hat-trick for their captain, Grant Holt, a bonus goal from the speedy winger Wes Hoolahan, and a good hour?s worth of sadistic chanting at Keane, who was repeatedly told, ?You?ll be sacked in the morning.?
n fact, the chances are that Keane?s contract will be allowed to run on until it expires peacefully in April.
But this horrible 4-1 defeat will surely extinguish any remaining goodwill among fans, most of whom had already turned against him, and confirm the theory that his management career is on the slide.
At the post-match briefings, Keane was not so much downbeat as fatalistic.
Asked about Ipswich?s public shows of support for him, he half-smiled and said: ?Yes, but we?ve heard that from clubs before.?
He also took a gloomy position on their immediate prospects, saying: ?We?re only a few points off the play-offs but, if anything, that gap is going to get bigger, because we?ve got a tough run of games coming up.?
The suspicion is that this sort of reverse psychology is doing nothing to motivate Keane?s team. But then motivation is useless in any case if your back four cannot hold a line. Ipswich?s defending was clueless.
Norwich scored an early opener when left-back Darren O?Dea tried to control a high-bouncing ball and carry it towards his own goalkeeper, only for Holt to dispossess him and slot the ball smoothly home.
Half an hour later, centre-back Damien Delaney made exactly the same mistake.
Except that rather than letting Holt run clear, Delaney tugged at his shirt, earning himself a red card for a professional foul.
?I?m not going to question the official over the sending-off,? Keane said. ?The ball should have been cleared. It was the same for the first goal. We gave Norwich a helping hand, because we?re not good enough to play with 10 men.?
In between these errors, Holt had scored his second from a lovely through-ball from debutant Henri Lansbury, a 20-year-old prospect on loan from Arsenal.
The home manager, Paul Lambert, described the pass as ?Messi-like?. But then Messi rarely gets to play against teams as disorganised as this.
It was a commanding performance from Holt, although he had been lucky to escape with a yellow card when he took a horrible hack at Ipswich winger Jack Colback in the third minute.
Colback?s team-mate David Leadbeater responded angrily, prompting a short bout of kabbadi between the two teams.
From that early skirmish, the passion and electricity of the occasion put the average Premier League match to shame.
When Holt completed his hat-trick, half an hour into the second period, it sounded as if a jet fighter plane was taking off from the Barclay Stand. Delia Smith, Norwich?s majority shareholder, can rarely have been so happy to skip Sunday lunch.
Canaries flying high
Norwich?s 4-1 win was their joint biggest-ever margin of victory over Ipswich.
It was also the first time they had scored four league goals against their East Anglian rivals.
Grant Holt?s hat-trick was Norwich?s first in an ?Old Farm Derby? since Hugh Curran in 1968.
The attendance of 26,532 was the highest at Carrow Road since 1984, when Norwich played Tottenham Hotspur in an FA Cup replay.

Posted By: dreamteam, Nov 28, 20:18:14