The ACN Match Review – Chelsea (a)

24/10/21

Maddie Mackenzie went to Stamford Bridge to sample the delights of the capital. What a nightmare it turned out to be.

I’m a happy clapper. From his appointment back in 2017, through the turgid first season, the awful ‘Project Restart’, and the stumbles at the start of our latest title winning campaign, I’ve never doubted that Farke was the right man for the job. I’ve defended him to the point where others have said ‘come on, you’re kidding yourself now.’ I couldn’t imagine a scenario where I’d think he needed to go.

And here we are.

I’ve ditched the regular format of this review – initially I thought I’d make a joke out of ‘Biggest Positive’ by pointing to Lungi’s appearance on the bench, or drop some sarcastic lines under ‘did an Along come Norwich happen?’ Then Chelsea scored their third and it all started to look far more serious.

The 2019/20 season was so frustrating because we knew those players were better than the results were suggesting. They were scoring goals, getting themselves into winning positions, beating Man City, bagging a hat trick. Every loss was soul destroying; we even had that godawful tag ‘best team to finish bottom’ attached to us for a bit. It was that knowledge of what could have been that made such a strange season feel so awful.

This season is different. There have been no signs of progress. The players don’t seem to realise that they’re allowed to tackle, to press, to run faster than a jog. Farkeball is gone and in its place is an unrecognisable system characterised by individuals that look more like children lost in a supermarket searching for their parents than Premier League footballers. We’ve scored one (1) goal from open play. ONE! From a team known for free flowing, attacking football! It’s baffling.

When I reviewed our game against Leicester, I said this: ‘It feels so close. Norwich is currently operating like an orchestra where a few of the instruments are out of tune, or where one of the French Horns is playing on the offbeat. Sort those very fixable issues and you’ve got a sound that’s lovely to listen to and very effective.’ To continue that metaphor, we’re now a band made entirely up of five year olds with recorders. How do you fix an issue that large?

Can they be solved by sacking the manager? By changing the formation? By altering personnel? I don’t know. Time will tell if Stuart Webber thinks he does. There’s plenty of tactical analysis that can be done to explain exactly why Norwich are where we are, but I’m no tactician. I’m just a football fan who found myself in an away end watching the home side barely celebrate because a victory against their opposition was so expected.

As I sit on the train at Liverpool Street trying to find the words to sum up how I feel after that (I left early. I’ve never left early. The appeal of eating a halloumi wrap while sat on South Bank was more appealing than watching Norwich), all I can think about is how awful it feels to be the laughing stock of the league. I HATE hearing Norwich criticised, it’s a real ‘no, this is mine, I can say it’s shit but if you do we’re going to have a problem’ situation. Watching the smug bastards at TalkSport bang on about how we’re a disgrace to English football and all Norwich fans should be rounded up and shot for the crime of daring to think it would be different this time is downright miserable. I’m tired. I’m fed up. I miss Farkeball.

I don’t know what happens from here, and for the first time since I fell in love with football, I almost don’t know if I want to.

Comments

  1. Graham Murfitt says:

    Been going 43 years and it flattened me yesterday.Where do they go what do they do? I really have no answers this time.Last week thought needed somebody in front of DMs to feed forwards.Now feels only Normann of new faces any good.Next weeks an awful 1,set of fans that hate us even more than Towns

  2. Clive Pinder says:

    Don’t blame farke
    I

    ,blame the people who treat norwich city as play thing, They don’t care about the fans, Mr webberwho left Huddersfield in the mire,our recruitment man gone to pastures new,The toy is about to break

  3. Andy Nightingale says:

    Great report Maddie, nicely put. I was not there but I feel the pain deep in my guts. Embarrassment, anger, grief the lot. How frustrating after the past two games in which Daniel altered the formation specifically to tighten up defensive play, albeit to the detriment of Farkeball and the results where improved. I think its that rising of optimism in the ranks that makes yesterday’s capitulation all the harder to take.
    The only way for true supporters to react on Sunday next is to forget that result, forget the fear and give strength to the boys in true 12th man style and maybe we can bounce back . I do feel there is enough quality in our team to make a fist of it, Daniel has been here before and turned things round and got the team purring. Lets make it easier for him not harder.

    1. Richard says:

      Great reply Andy. Right spirit.

  4. Detroit 94 says:

    totally agree this is beyond embarrassing. Don’t know if I can be bothered to go and this is after 50 years of watching them. This is just demoralising. Something needs to change

  5. Darren Cowles says:

    Farkes not got a clue,Hanley is a disgrace of a captain webber bailing out cant be seen leaving a successful team can blame it on everyone else,by the way just booked my train tickets to Leicester new year day so I will keep supporting team

  6. Kotka kanary says:

    I feel sad. First I was angry. Then embarrassed. But now really just sad. Sad that I can only feel total apathy towards a team that got me through some really difficult times last year. That is draining away my passion. Killing my enthusiasm. Is it too much to hope that they could care as much as I do

  7. TwiceIfNotThrice says:

    Hi Maddie. Thanks for putting yourself through the that, your a braver soul than me; I got offered a ticket (sitting with the Chelsea fans admittedly) and ran a mile. I did however want to make a point I keep getting stuck on; I am baffled by the wider football communities lack of interest in the problem that Norwich present in this ‘super league’ era of ‘the best league in the world’; that being Norwich’s seemingly inability to function as a mildly successful prem football club within the context of a healthy, self financing, adventurous, community focused project, which we all know they are. This country has tied itself in knots over the idea of ‘identity’ over the past 5 horrible years, an identity that is supposedly driven by ideas of locality, voice and representation. When we are supposedly outraged by the sportswashing actively happening in front of our eyes with numerous clubs, and whilst all these centers of community spirit and concern are being rapidly bought up by nation states in a aggressive attempt at soft power, i for one celebrate that my club has resisted (or never been asked, ha) to partake in this dance. The result is, however, an incredibly unequal playing field. The fact that no one seems very interested in recognising this is infuriating. That or Hanley is the defensive version of Cameron Jerome, too good for the Champ, terrible in the prem, Sorensen doesn’t actually exist, Todd Cantwell is an algorithm, none of our new attacking signings actually know what a goal looks like, and Teemu is a poor mans Grant Holt. God knows. I was hoping writing all this down (sorry about that) would help me understand what has / is / will happen to Norwich is season. It hasn’t. What I do know is sometimes I sit and stare into space and just wonder what the hell Christos Tzolis thinks he’s doing in Norwich.

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Punt and Parsley are joined by The Guardian's Paul MacInnes and formerly of LYBP, Clare Thomas. They chat about Webber's way with words, that Chelsea defeat and how much time Farke has left.

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