match report especially for the super kind trips!
for the first time, I think we saw potential complacency (which I have no doubt will be addressed by Nuno), combined with a confused team/poor subs. I'm deflated, but not despondent. For periods, we still showed we are a class above norwich.
proper game of 2 halves. We started well, for 10 mins had solid clean possession. Some nice passing generally. Coady and Bennett went in tough early on, and the ref had a word with Coady. Then Coady & Boly completely switched off, letting Norwich in, and they really should have scored.
The gulf in class was immediately shown, as Jota, with some sublime skill turned most of the norwich defence, and scored.
N'Daiye is left unmarked to head in from a corner.
Norwich's equalizer flattened the crowd a little, which surprised me. Silly free kick to give away, then we weren't aware at our defending, and it was a simple header for them.
Neves booking did the same - he could have been booked earlier for the foul in the corner, but if the fouls wasn't sufficient, he'd probably have een due one for accumulations..
Boly was absolutely immense most of the time. Looks so good on the ball too.
Costa was also very lively. Some great accelaration to beat 3 norwich players in one go, and he almost went past another 3. He was excellent tonight.
We seemed to focus on attacking down our right. Douglas made a few good forward runs that weren't seen, and when he eventually was played in, didn't make the most of it.
2nd half was a bit bizarre. Costa went off (injury?) and Saiss on. For me, a bad change. Suspect Nuno wanted to shore up the middle, but we ended up playing a wierd 3-3-2-2 formation that wasn't working. We had no real width or outball, and norwich grew into the game. To be fair, they hadn't let their heads drop at 2-0, as we could easily have gone on to score 2-3 more in that first half. They took their chance, and then with lots of decent close passing caused us problems.
Afobe comes on, and doesn't resolve our shape issue. MGW then comes on for N'Daiye in an attempt to remedy this, but Norwich's tails are up, and they continue to believe they can get something out of the game. However, Gibbs-White shows he isn't out of place in the team, by showing numerus touches of good control and passing. How he doesn't score is beyond me. Twice I was convinced he would score.
The last 10 mins are just batshit. Ref loses the plot, fails to give numerous obvious fouls (or gives them the wrong way), and norwich somehow score with a distance strike that no doubt everyone is struggling to comprehend.
Very weird game. For moments in the first half, we were awesome. However, for most of the 2nd half, we looked very disjointed.
Have to say though, how fucking good is Ruben Neves. The man is amazing.
Also lovely to meet the jinfamous jinky, and the irrepressible t-dan for the first time.
