Having been hugely frustrated to see all three of the best placed chasing teams win this weekend, especially Watford’s 94th minute winner at Cardiff, this was yet another important game for Norwich in the hunt not only for Promotion but the title.
Sheffield Wednesday are a giant that looks to be losing it’s grip on the Championship but they still have some decent players capable of scoring the odd goal or two, like Jordan Rhodes, and they have a new manager in the form of Darren Moore.
Despite their lowly position in the table, Wednesday gave Norwich a fright in the first half, when they scored with their first meaningful attack in the 7th minute with Rhodes (who else?) scoring from close range. Rhodes showed here though why we were perhaps lucky not to sign him when we were promoted in 2018/19.
He is a tall player but without much pace or, seemingly, ability to hold the ball up. What he is though is a good finisher in the penalty area and that’s where he gets most of his goals from. He got the ball at his feet via a fortunate deflection that killed all the pace and he did what he always does in such close range positions, he hit the target and scored.
His smiling face agitated my son who accused Rhodes of a “lack of respect”, but what it really was, was the perfect start for the Owls who could now afford to sit back and keep it tight, which they did very well.
They were playing with three centre backs and dropped into often having 10 or even 11 men behind the ball when out of possession. It was difficult to break them down and only once in the first half did we get a real sniff of goal when Buendia’s flick put Pukki in on goal. He took a fraction too long though and Tom Lees blocked the shot.
The family discussed the problems at half-time and we all agreed that Lukas Rupp wasn’t doing enough to warrant staying on much longer. Number 10 is the only position in the side that isn’t really nailed down and although I like Rupp, he is a very solid midfielder and does the basics very well, he is short of the sort of magic that Cantwell and Buendia have in their boots and at that link-up position, I think that’s important. His best position, I’d say, is as a more orthodox central midfielder.
The second half didn’t see much more action until Norwich scored out of nothing and Rupp was then immediately replaced by Kieran Dowell just after the hour mark. Dowell has that little something extra in that position, his vision, passing and technical ability help him play it better and it’s a real shame that he’s suffered with injury this season. I think that he had a very good 30 odd minutes here and his introduction certainly made an impact, giving the game a lift after, as I say, Teemu Pukki scored a goal almost out of nothing just a minute earlier.
The finish was terrific as he smashed a powerful shot into the top corner from an angle after good work by Oliver Skipp. If the first goal was a cracker, the second was even better.
Buendia charged into a block tackle on Josh Windass in midfield, felling him and winning the ball, before jumping up and sliding the ball through to Todd Cantwell. Todd took a touch past the stretching defender before pinging an awesome left footed shot into Kieran Westwood’s top corner.
Take a bow, son.
As soon as that went in on 77 minutes, the Owls were done, heads dropped and shoulders visibly slumped.
Norwich saw the game out the more likely to get the game’s next goal quite comfortably and marched on with their eighth win in a row. They are now on 79 points with two more games to come this week. Beating Forest on Wednesday and then Blackburn next Saturday would put Norwich within touching distance of not only promotion but the title.
It’s going to be another big week.
By contrast, Sheffield Wednesday are now seven points from safety with eleven games remaining and it’s looking grim. Even without their six point deduction they would be in the bottom three.
Sad to see.
OTBC