I know I’m biased but Norwich City are simply too good for the Championship, aren’t they?
Having just watched the training game win over Nottingham Forest, it’s just too easy, isn’t it?
Seriously though, this was another masterclass of Farkeball as the Canaries simply played the ball around Forest as though they weren’t there. It isn’t like this every week though and we all know that. The recent games against clubs like Sheffield Wednesday, Wycombe and Rotherham have shown that the supposed weaker teams in the league can still put up a challenge.
It was the same team that beat Wednesday last Sunday apart from Emi Buendia who had stayed back in Norfolk after the birth of his second son on Tuesday evening. Emi would appear to be a big loss and his boots would seem quite big to fill but Kieran Dowell did that with aplomb, scoring a cracking second goal to put the league leaders 2-0 up after just 13 minutes.
Teemu Pukki (who else?) had opened the scoring on 9 minutes with his eleventh goal in nine games and his 22nd of the season. He has got better and better as the season has gone on and is on course to match the 29 goals he scored the last time he was in this division.
The score at the City Ground, could and should have been more for Norwich. It wasn’t really a real reflection of the way the game panned out because although Forest had a couple of chances, Norwich really should’ve been out of sight by half-time. The fact they weren’t owed more to some slightly wayward finishing and a couple of very good saves from their keeper, Jordan Smith.
Just for some transparency, Norwich had 66% possession and they had 22 shots, 7 on target, while Forest had just 5 and only 1 on target.
Forest were woeful. I’m not saying that to be mean if you’re a Forest fan, they just were. The lack of intensity was the biggest problem and they didn’t do anywhere near enough or have enough physical intensity about them. That really surprised me for a Chris Hughton team, who more often than not is able to instil physicality and a high work rate in the teams he has managed. Football fans will put up with a lot from their team’s players but a perceived lack of effort is not one of them.
The men in red were too often strolling rather than running and that allowed those in yellow to have a pretty easy night. The difference between the way that Teemu Pukki played, for example, and the way that Lewis Grabban played was light years apart. Pukki was closing players down and chasing balls he might not win throughout the match. Grabban just didn’t do that.
If I was a Forest fan, I’d be fuming after watching that.
Norwich march on towards what is surely a second title in three years with their ninth win in a row as they opened up a 13 point gap to third placed Swansea and 10 points to second placed Watford.
Daniel Farke has now reached his eighty point target to notionally cement a play off place. If they beat Blackburn on Saturday, the Canaries will be on 85 points. Leeds won the title last season with 91 points.
This has been the best season that Norwich City have ever had in terms of points gained and with just nine games left, three more wins could easily see the title won.
OTBC