Norwich City and Sheffield United played out an entertaining draw at Carrow Road on Saturday, with both sides probably being happy with a point.
It’s been a while since I’ve felt the gravitas, the importance of a game of football that the Canaries have been involved in like I did today.
West Brom away was huge a couple of weeks ago but I wasn’t able to go to that one, whereas this game gave me that feeling that I get in the pit of my stomach when we play a big one and I’m there, I expect I’ll feel it again next weekend and the one after.
As I checked Twitter at 2 pm for team news, I noticed a tweet from Sheffield United which showed a bit of video footage from inside the away dressing room. Shirts on hangers, as you’d expect but the visitors had actually gone to the trouble of covering the pink walls with white flip chart paper.
📽️ The Blades will be in their traditional red and white stripes to face Norwich City at Carrow Road.#TwitterBlades #SUFC #ForgedinSteel ⚔️🔴⚪️⚫️ pic.twitter.com/FWxtDPNR1n
— Sheffield United (@SheffieldUnited) January 26, 2019
I thought it didn’t affect you, Mr Wilder?
The benches were still pink though, they couldn’t do much about that.
The game kicked off with City in the ascendency. Slick, quick passing from front to back saw United carved open a few times with the pick of the bunch coming in the 11th minute when Onel Hernandez scored a breathtaking team goal.
The ball was sweetly moved forward before Pukki played Hernandez in and he slotted through Dean Henderson’s legs to open the scoring. It was a deserved lead for Norwich who could’ve gone further ahead before the break when Buendia was denied by a Henderson block in another great move.
The game changed on the stroke of half-time though when Buendia fouled Stevens in the area and Billy Sharp smashed the resulting penalty past Tim Krul with virtually the last kick of the half.
The visitors came out much the better of the two sides in the second period and dominated the first ten minutes only for Teemu Pukki’s exquisite finish to see City re-take the lead against the run of play.
The ball came out on the right to Max Aarons, whose low cross found Pukki and the Finn fired a first time, right footed chip into the net.
Tim Krul had to be on his guard to beat away a shot from Gary Madine soon after but other than that, City looked fairly comfortable, albeit they started to drop deeper and deeper as the Blades went for it.
They got their reward in the 79th minute when Billy Sharp lost Christoph Zimmermann and headed home a Duffy cross from close range at the far post.
Both teams could’ve won it at the end but it finished 2-2 and a point seemed fair enough. It was a great advert for Championship football.
The visitors are a high pressing, hard-working side who play the percentage balls. Always looking for a ball into the channel for someone to chase.
Up until Buendia’s rash challenge on Stevens though, it was City that had looked the better team in the first half. The penalty changed all that in the second though and United were much improved after the break with the boost of that half time equaliser.
I came away feeling disappointed because it was a game we could/should have won. We took the lead twice and conceded two sloppy equalisers, the second one was particularly upsetting.
Yes, Billy Sharp is an experienced campaigner and he knows every trick in the book, in fact, he’s been around so long that he probably wrote that book, but Zimmermann will be disappointed that he let him run off him.
Zimbo was given the man of the match award by the sponsors, which I found a little odd. In my opinion, Stiepermann, Trybull or Buendia were better candidates but everyone sees the game differently, don’t they?!
I always like to end on a positive note and with Klose, Tettey and Leitner getting closer to a first-team return, the team will only be improved further with those three added to it.
Next up is Leeds United, another game we really don’t want to lose.
OTBC
Carrow Road
Sky Bet Championship
26/01/2019 4:00 pm
Attendance: 26844
Referee: James Linington
| Norwich City | Sheffield United | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hernandez 11', Pukki 56' | Sharp 45+4', pen 79' | ||||||
| Krul | Henderson | ||||||
| Aarons | Basham | ||||||
| Zimmermann (c) | Egan | ||||||
| Godfrey | O'Connell | ||||||
| Lewis | Baldock | ||||||
| Vrancic | Norwod | ||||||
| Trybull | Fleck | ||||||
| Stieperman | 88' | Stevens | |||||
| Buendia | 88' | Dowell | 60' | ||||
| Hernandez | Sharp (c) | 90+4' | |||||
| Pukki | Madine | 60' | |||||
Substitutes |
|||||||
| McGovern | Couts | ||||||
| Rhodes | 88' | McGoldrick | 60' | ||||
| Passlack | Stearman | ||||||
| Hanley | Duffy | 60' | |||||
| Srbeny | Johnson | ||||||
| McLean | Moore | ||||||
| Cantwell | 88' | Washington | 90+4' | ||||
Game Statistics |
||
| 7 | Goal attempts | 18 |
| 5 | On Target | 3 |
| 10 | Corners | 3 |
| 16 | Fouls | 14 |
| 3 | Yellow Cards | 2 |
| 0 | Red Cards | 0 |
| 52 | % | 48 |