Think of Norwich and what do you think of? Personally, I
think of Alan Partridge and Grant Holt for some reason. During our ascent of
the leagues when we were competing with Norwich who made the same journey as us.
 Grant Holt was their talismanic striker
in the same way that Sir Rickie Lambert was ours. Whilst Rickie lost weight to
play his best football, Grant Holt remained a big fat bastard but he was
effective for a short period of time.

I also remember Grant Holt falling over another guy who had a few weight issues
as well (and still does) in Luke Shaw and he won a penalty off of Mark
Twattenberg at Carrow Road.  Holt missed
the resulting penalty and we got a draw out of the game but I didn’t stop
Mauricio Pochettino marching across the pitch to have words with Twattenberg
after the game. Oh how I hated Mark Twattenberg but in the eyes of many, he was
a decent referee who got selected to go to international tournaments, unlike
any of the arseholes we’ve got refereeing games at the moment. Today it’s Kevin
Friend – oh deep joy.

Of course, Norwich have the legendary Delia Smith and “lets be ‘avin you” when
pissed as a fart and all that stuff. Norwich have left themselves a mountain to
climb if they want to not get relegated at the end of their first season back
in the Premier League and this is a game that they must surely win to have any
chance as banking on Coronavirus getting the league voided, didn’t work.  They have taken a few scalps at home but I
see them as a bit of a soft touch and we should be confident about getting a
result from this game, strange conditions or not.

Norwich don’t have Grant Holt any more but they do have Teemu Pukki who for a
while looked like he was going to keep them up single-handedly but his goal
return has dried up and we could do with that remaining the case today. Todd
Cantwell and Emiliano Buendia have chipped in with a few goals from midfield
but just not enough and defensively, fuck me, they still have Grant Hanley in
the team. I’m sure there are League 1 sides that he would struggle to get in.
Tim Krul is in goal and he has always been decent and I like the look of Max
Aarons at right back.  We kicked Cantwell
all around the pitch at St.Mary’s and he didn’t react well to it so it’ll be
interesting to see if that tactic is used again.

All we have to gauge Saints on is a friendly against Bristol City at St Mary‘s
which consisted of three 45 minutes “halves”. Overall, it was as you’d expect
with us looking pretty good up front and forcing mistakes in the Bristol City
defence but then us throwing in a couple of crap goals to keep them in it. Not
that the result is important but we won 3-2 with two early goals from Stuart
Armstrong and one from Danny Ings. As for pointers towards the starting line-up,
it was interesting to see Michael Obafemi upfront with Ings with Shane Long out
injured. Slightly worryingly, Pierre Hojbjerg started at right back so it will
be interesting to see who wins the lucky dip to play there against Norwich.
With Pierre a right back, Will Smallbone played in midfield and looked very
good indeed going forward. I feel that whilst we may get away with him playing
at home games and he may provide some good ammunition from strikers in tight
games, I am worried that he’s just going to get bullied in away games. The
other interesting point also concerned Pierre and that he was not captain,
given his contract situation and so JWP deservedly was given the armband.

To the game and the Pick Channel – I have decided on having
piped in crowd noise so let’s go.   Our
line-up is a solid choice with Hojbjerg in midfield and Valery winning today’s
right back tombola.  Michael Obafemi is
preferred to Che Adams up front.  Our two
extra bench spots are taken by Kevin Danso who is clearly just seeing out his
time here and Nathan Tella, who has always looked like a very positive presence
in the age group teams.

Before we get going there is a minutes silence for the Covid victims and then
we had the taking of the knee by all players for the Black Lives Matter
initiative. Incredibly powerful stuff all round…. and if
you don’t like football using its platform for this, then I suggest you go
elsewhere and worship at the altar of Donald Trump, Nigel Farage and Katie
Hopkins (to name but three)

What have Norwich got? – not a lot as five minutes later we
break out a defence with Redmond carrying it forward before finding Ings. A
pass to the right to Armstrong who bundles past three half-arsed non-challenges
before hitting it left footed low into the bottom corner of the net. 2-0 and
two goals in eight minutes at the start of the second half and that really
should be enough.

Saints can now continue with a game plan of sitting deep and allowing Norwich
to attack, which they are not capable of doing and then we can play on the
break. We give away a corner after a Bednarek mistake which he makes up for and
then the plan to play on the break really should work as Redmond sends Obafemi
away and he is one-on-one with the last defender but he dithers instead of
passing it square to Armstrong and though the ball does eventually deflect to
JWP, his effort is comfortably cleared from in front of the goal.

The first substitution happens on the hour mark with Norwich deciding that wearing
both a hairband and an alice band is too much when you’re putting in zero
effort and losing 2-0 and so Cantwell is off. We didn’t even have to kick him
to bits for him to be rubbish this time.

We are playing superbly at the moment and knocking the ball around brilliantly around
the edge in Norwich is box with JWP having another shot blocked at the end of
the six or seven man passing move.  Our
only danger is from our own right back as he again fails to clear a long
clearance which results in Norwich picking up the ball and Pukki gets the shot
away from the penalty spot which is superbly blocked by Bednarek.   From the resulting corner, Norwich do
actually get the ball in the net but it’s a very very obvious offside.

As long as we keep the ball away from our right back then we are doing fine
with another flowing move coming soon after starting off with Armstrong on the
left hand side, multiple passes out to the right and then back to Armstrong in
the middle and he dug out a shot from under his feet which had Krul scrambling
away to give us another corner.

It’s another chance a moment later as JWP clips of all down the left and Obafemi
is away and onside, played on by Norwich defender in the middle who is about 20
yards behind everybody else. It’s a 2v1 break but Obafemi again completely butchers
it by not getting his head up and playing in Danny Ings for what would’ve been
a simple goal.   Ings such a lovely bloke
he just smiles about it. I would’ve been going absolutely fucking mental.

Just a couple of minutes later and Michael gets another chance as we break away
down the right and this time he gets his head up picks up Redmond, who waltzes around the last defender and plants it into the far
corner for 3-0.  It’s remarkable what
happens when you pass the ball.

For the last 10 minutes, Ralph goes substitution mad with
first Smallbone and Adams on for Armstrong and Obafemi. Next up a debut for
Nathan Tella who comes on for Ings and with just a couple to go, Boufal and KWP
come on for Redmond and Valery.  Of the
subs, Adams looked more lively than usual and Tella showed that he wasn;t
afraid to put himself about and he had a half chance just before the final
whistle but didn’t get hold of it.

Nice one.  A completely deserved win and
the only mystery is how we didn’t win by more.  We can have absolutely no complaints though,
given the strange situation that the players find themselves in and the
rustiness they must have had. They went out there and they beat what was in
front of them, which is all you can do.   What was in front of them was absolutely
fucking crap. If I was in Norwich fan, I would probably be inbred but I would
also be absolutely furious.  It’s fine
for a team not to be good enough but it’s not fine to have had three months
thinking about it, to then come out and not look like the team who had the most
to play for given their situation. They did alright for the first 10 minutes
which was more down to us being poor than them doing anything spectacular but
after that they were absolutely abysmal. 
Todd Cantwell looked like My Little Pony with his alice band and
hairband set.  If you look like that and
you don’t want to get rinsed for it then you really have to be a special
player.  Daniel Farke had the look of a condemned man at the end – actually he had the look of a retired porn star like he usually does.

Elsewhere, Armstrong started dreadfully but played a major
part in the first two goals and was great in the second half and likewise, Redmond
had a quiet first half before terrorising Norwich in the second. Up front,
Danny Ings looked as sharp as if he’d never been away, scoring one and he would’ve
had another one had Michael Obafemi got his head up.  Obafemi did some really good things upfront
but his decision-making was shocking, butchering two easy goals before finally
getting it right on the third attempt. 
It’s perfectly ok for someone else to score.  He is young as he will learn and the minutes
he will get in the remaining games will help him.  At the moment he’s a bit like a young Shane
Long – all pace and not a lot of brain, chasing things after the fact rather
than making intelligent runs.

In defence, the three players who you knew were going to be
solid, were solid and Valery did okay going forward but was an absolute fucking
nightmare every time the ball went near him in a defensive capacity. Kyle
Walker-Peters must be fucking dreadful in training or we have already decided
that we are not going to buy him.

Overall, it was a perfect first game back for Saints which all but dispels any
lingering doubt about our ability to stay in this division for next season.
Norwich, if they weren’t anyway, are completely fucked.  As for the experience of watching a game on TV
without fans being in the stadium. I went to the crowd noise on option as I
said and overall, it was decent. It helps that we won of course but I think I
can live with this for the rest of the season.

Next up is Arsenal at home which is, given their post-restart performances so
far in defeats against Manchester City and Brighton, a decent opportunity for
three points. We can certainly approach it with no fear after today’s result.
Bring it on.