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Take a bow Todd. Wow. Ill admit I didn’t see him being a PL player and thought his lack of pace would restrict him but he looks stronger, cleverer and just reads the game so so well. Onel will be missed but it’s now definitely Todd’s position to lose. What a mature performance on the biggest stage.

I had a count up this morning and unless my maths is wrong this will be my 66th season at CR and 26th in the top flight. This time last year I never dreamed that this would be happening and was fully expectant of a long period of mediocrity stretching into the far distance. The day dawned bright and warm and for a change instead of the bikes, we had a lift down to the ground from my grandaughter Rosie. Carrow Road looked wonderful in the sunlight and with a crowd that looked well up for the challenge it was hard not to be carried along by a feeling of optimism. City began nicely on the front foot and were soon displaying the short pass and move game that we have come to know and love. Leitner was at the heart of all the early attacks with some incisive play and combined to good effect with Todd Cantwell, to put the frighteners on what quickly looked like a nervy Magpies back line. Indeed Cantwell, almost despatched Pukki's quick pass after the City Talisman found space in the area only to be denied by a combination of defender and goalkeeper. As we came up to the ten minute mark it was Stiepermann, who found Pukki in enough space to turn and flash a low shot a yard wide of Dubravka's right hand post. City were definitely bossing proceedings but had a reminder to be careful when Lewis didn't get enough on a clearing header only for Krafth to lash an angled shot well over the bar. A minute later it really should have been City ahead when Pukki found space to right of goal. Stiepermann and Lietner were waiting for the pull back but Pukki backed himself from a narrow angle (and who can blame him) only for Dubravka, to save at the expense of a corner. Soon after it was Pukki again who latched onto Cantwell's pass only to shoot straight at the keeper. Apart from a speculative twenty yarder that Krul fielded comfortably there hadn't been much coming back from the visitors until suddenly Joelinton found space to flash a header alarmingly close to Krul's right hand upright. The saying that you have to take your chances in this league was quickly proved true as City roared back downfield and Pukki was in the right place to volley Buendia's cross into the roof of the net from 12 yards. Never was a goal more richly deserved for some of City's football in this half verged on truly scintilating. The goal brought the visitors forward a bit more but Krul in the City goal looked confident with a take and and a block when danger threatened. Then a bit more neat possession football saw City see out the half with more than a margin of comfort. I had been my usual pessimistic self over the summer, with expectations of a relegation struggle, but if this level can be maintained throughout the season we might well confound the pundits predictions. Even the halftime entertainment was a cut above last years fare😀 Newcastle upped their game as the second period began and City had to stay solid at the back. I thought Godfrey and Hanley were forming a decent understanding and even though there was a bit of pressure there were few real alarms until Krul had to palm away a dangerous cross shot. A second goal was obviously needed to settle the nerves and it duly came just after the hour as Cantwell brilliantly allowed the ball to come across his body a leave a defender flat footed. A pass inside to Pukki allowed the City striker time to check and strike a low shot past Dubravka's right hand and raise the Carrow Road decibels to the rafters. Leitner now came into his own, winning balls in midfield and accurately finding a team mate with pass after pass. The visitors looked a beaten side and a few minutes later Pukki's hat trick goal confirmed it. With Cantwell and Pukki versus one defender it was no contest and Pukki did the honours with another firm low shot, this time past Dibravka's left hand. Mario, Tetty and Byram came on for the last knockings and all that was needed now was the clean sheet. Unfortunately it wasn't to be as with under a minute of added time left, Shelvey, the pick of the visitors players, found space to be onside and flash a consolation across Tim Krul and into the roof of the net. All in all a hugely satistfying win, not only for the goals but for the manner of play that brought them about. I wasn't confident before kick off but on this sort of display I reckon we will be more than o.k. Pukki has to be MOM for that hat trick but in open play nobody was better than Leitner. To be honest it would be churlish to fault anyone.👍🍺 And I got a lift home as well😀🚘

Someone help me unsee this post

Have a short layover for a couple of hours on the way back from Shanghai to Heathrow. There's only one choice of t-shirt for this occasion.... be interesting to see how many Finns spot it!

I don't know what version some of you watched but I thought it was fair and balanced. City got praise. United got a bit of a bashing. What Fuzzar just said.😀👍

Having just watched it, I don't have a problem with the coverage. Murphy was complimentary about us and Shearer picked holes in the Toon performance. I'm sure if we carry on in this vein as the season progresses, we'll rightly get the plaudits we deserve.

Let's get all this justified venom against that narrow-minded, overpaid crew on MotD, and elsewhere, out of our systems straight away. It has all been so predictable from both sides. The fact is that NCFC will have to achieve a lot more than most, if not all, Premier League teams this season to gain any appreciable recognition but we cannot possibly continue to spend column inches moaning about it. Let's just quietly get on with the job knowing that genuine supporters the length of the land (except in deepest, sour grape growing Suffolk,) appreciate quality when they see it and will be less biased in their opinions. Actions speak louder than words.

I honestly believe that this is the best football I have seen at Carrow Road over my entire supporting life. We have fielded some good teams and played some good stuff over the years but some of that quick one touch stuff today was a joy to behold. I only wish I had another 66 seasons in front of me😀

You seem suited to the prem. two attacking fullbacks. Good midfielders. Not sure what your squad is like depth wise but you look the part already

My Newcastle-supporting friend is certain they've made a mistake and signed a Sunday league player called Joe Linton.

This. Why do we have some sort of victim complex. "The world hates us", "The media downplay us", "if it was x, y, z they'd say this...". The analysis was fine. They said that we deserved the win, Pukki played well and that Newcastle were terrible, particularly in attack. All true. You don't get in-depth analysis for any game from Match of the Day; the production team are just pleased if the viewers can understand 50% of what Shearer says.

no thanks

And another... I hope Newcastle have kept the receipt for Joelinton. 🤣

Was it on a level with the best in the world? We scored three against an average Newcastle side who themselves had two or three really easy chances they missed x the game could easily have been a 3-3 draw. Let’s not get carried away - we were nowhere near a Man City or Liverpool standard.

This is the team that thumped Leeds 4-0 at Elland Road in August 93 Gunn Culverhouse Newman Polston Butterworth Bowen Fox Crook Goss Sutton Robins A tidy side it has to be said!

What we have got out of them has a lot to do with Farke and his backroom staff. Not every club could achieve what they have done or those players would not have been available to come here. Celtic for instance failed to get anything out of Pukki....... LOL. We must keep that backroom team as long as we can !!

Todd's been brilliant over these two games. He was always the type of player to thrive in the PL. He's stronger than when he first came in to the side last season. Has obviously worked really hard. Through his ability, hard work and a brave manager we could well have that £10m player everyone would have been happy with us buying if Todd had been sent out on loan. 🙃

The handball one in the Man City game I think VAR got right. The new handball rule is ludicrous and I’m not sure we would have thought Spurs were hard done by if that had stood. As you say though, that’s not a VAR issue but an issue with the new rule. The one I do have a slight issue with is the offsides when it’s using a shoulder rather than arm and the margin is tiny. There was one game last week (I think it may have been Man City with one that Sterling had disallowed) where VAR had drawn the line down from attacker and defender - but because of the angle of his body the attacker’s arm was the furthest part forward. As you can’t score with the arm, they had drawn the line from the attacker’s arm pit. The gap between defender and attacker’s armpit was tiny - mms rather than cms. So should there be a bit of leeway for error? How do you decide where the arm pit starts and the arm ends when you’re looking at a still frame picture where the player is leaning/twisting? The cricket Hawkeye for lbw requires more than half of the ball to be hitting half of the stumps because it isn’t 100 per cent accurate all of the time - when the calls are so tight for the offsides, I’d like to still see it go in the attacker’s favour rather than assume the VAR line is infallible.

Lurking, waiting for that one mistake to single him out with an already-drafted thread ready to post.

Granted I've not seen as many of his games as most other fans, but of the games I have seen I would go as far as to say this is the best I've seen him play. Noticeably more attacking than usual, and looking pretty nifty doing it too. Max is normally the more attacking of the two, but not today. Found myself wondering whether this was a direct result of Cantwell playing instead of Onel. Onel a true wide man, full of tricks, running, cutting in or crossing, leaves Jamal very exposed, so probably feels unable to push forward as much. With Cantwell playing, instead he had a player who would look to play more central in a plymaker role. Looked to me that Farke had recognised that that might result in a lack of width/penetration on that left side and gave Jamal the licence to get forward. Looked confident on the ball and solid in defence. As I say, best game I have personally seen him play

a good report here "Norwich delivered a “top-class performance” to brush Newcastle aside in front of a colourful and raucous Carrow Road " https://www.theguardian.com/football/2019/aug/17/norwich-newcastle-premier-league-match-report

Suspect there's a lot of uninformed opinions on this poll....... you know, a bit like the media of late. Sutton was brilliant.... Pukki is brilliant.............. how about we leave it there!!!!!!

The problem isn't VAR, it's how the premiership have chosen to implement it. If the ref explains his thinking and hasn't obviously not seen something then he won't be overturned. He can ask for the var opinion, but, the refs in the premiership won't do that due to their egos...

It's great you can see a future in Europe for us, Paul.

If the shoe fits ....

How else could she be making midnight fridge raid feasts and still stay in shape. I believe a bit of rumpy pumpy burns a lot of calories. I burnt off my porridge just looking at her picture!

Good job we weren't playing Hartlepool! #monkeyhangers. Apologies for bad taste if anyone offended. https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/The-Hanging-of-the-Hartlepool-Monkey/ Hope you find the furry fella.

The Newcastle header wide in the first half was absolutely easy - a virtually open net from 6 yards at 0-0. A better side than Newcastle (of which I think there will be at least seventeen this season) score that - that goes in and we’re on the back foot with doubts creeping in. It could easily have gone a different way. Until we went ahead they had as good if not better chances than us. I’m not sure we had many more “clear” chances than they did - neither of Pukki’s first two were clear chances (just great finishes). I can’t see where we had seven clear good chances to score, and the best chance of the game was that Newcastle missed header. To throw something else into the mix, Southampton lost 2-1 to Liverpool. We were 4-0 down within half an hour. We are good and we shouldn’t downplay ourselves. But the comments on here, even when we got stuffed by Liverpool, were as if the pundits should have been suggesting we were the best side in the country. We aren’t. We will hopefully prove to be a decent mid table premier league side with potential to build on that in the future. I don’t think there are many ‘grey tinted glasses’ on here at all - we play good football going forward and I don’t think that is disputed by anyone. But we also look shaky at the back and shouldn’t get carried away until we’re mathematically safe!

Don't usually watch MOTD but i wouldn't miss it for the world tonight. Mind you it will be about how bad Newcastle were from old misery guts.

Yep, agreed with Fuzzar and Herman. Murphy spoke about us, Shearer about Newcastle. MOTD is predominantly a highlights show with a bit of commentary/analysis. There are too many games for detailed analysis of everything that every team does well.

Thunderbolts and lightning, very very frightening

Must be one of your many fans then.....😀

I think they have dropped the unnecessary Chelsea bit off their name now.

People get ill, cars break down and sometimes more important stuff than football pops up at short notice. 17 is hardly a large amount.

The simple fact is that most of these "old" pundits don't understand us. For them football is a numbers game where +/- £ spent = +/- success. It is beyond their comprehension that a Club, that has spent SFA in comparison to everyone else, can survive and therefore they made their assumptions about us before a ball was kicked.

Not everyone! But too many on here did show a lack of understanding. The lads played all his life through the middle, then gets asked to play wide in some games when we weren't quite at it and he'd hardly played for a few months....

I had either completely forgotten that or that is genuinely news to me. I was referencing his famous goal to equalise against Arsenal after they were 4-0 down

Also - that rubbish about VAR in the first segment on Man City. Said something along the lines of “without VAR we would never have been talking about that goal being disallowed”. Absolute b*llocks. We would be looking at 10 different angles of ball striking hand and talking to Poch about feeling hard done by. VAR polices the laws of the game. You have an issue with it, take it up with the laws of the game. And we ‘only talk about VAR decisions’ because that’s all you asked the players and managers BBC. Funny that. Rant over.

This feels different to our previous endeavours into this league, We look the part and our play is simply far superior to that of Lamberts, Hughtons and Neil’s teams. This team is an absolute pleasure to watch, long may it hopefully continue

So we're in the pub after the game chatting to these Newcastle fans and explaining Ray's Funds and how we'd added £35.80 with today's game. Joe and Graham both gave me £20 and then they put their change in a glass, did a collection which amounted to another £43.33 So thanks to these guys and Fenway Frank's picks we added £117.13 to the presentation pot for our wonderful Downes Syndrome football team ⚽💛💚🖤💟

I thought we were absolutely superb today. Newcastle were totally out played. This could possibly be the best team we have ever had. OTBC

Well I will admit I wasn’t convinced after his league cup performance last year, he looked too light weight and unsure of what he was supposed to be doing, he improved a bit at the end of last season. I watched him in the pre season games and he seemed a different player, but to take that on to the last two EPL games is unbelievable. So well done Todd and long may it continue. although I never publicly criticised him, I try not to do that to our team, players, staff, management or owners, even when I think they’re in the wrong.

I don't give a **** what they think. When i see performances like that from Aarons, Lewis, Cantwell and Godfrey it almost brings a tear to the eye they were that good. The senior lads were great too. As a side note Newcastle spent about £40m on Joelinton. Godfrey made him look like Championship at best. Ben is scaringly good.

It'll be "Lethargic Newcastle made to pay by chirpy Canaries". Fu(k 'em, in the nicest possible way!

In his games from last season he was so raw. You could seem him out of position and unsure of where to be on the pitch even when the rest of the team was flowing fluidly. He had a lot of good contributions in his games but it was clear to see he wasn't quite on the same wavelength as the rest of the team. Looking back it's obvious that it was down to a lack of experience because he's come into this season so determined, confident and ready to show people what he can do. Last season he was the main one of his academy peers who wasn't fully able to showcase their skills. He was the name of the academy boys that was tagged on at the end as an extra bonus but now he wants to prove why he deserves his spot of that team. Instead of resigning himself to be the man left out he's grown up and wants to make this season his. I am blown away by how much he's improved. He's magnificent.

Bigger fanbase perhaps, but not really a much bigger club "on the pitch." When Sky did an ultimate Football League based on average league position over 50 years, they were 9th and we were 15th. Too many underestimate our success and heritage.

Agree. Todd is showing he is a very special player and deserves to wear the no. 14 shirt. (I will get his name on my shirt this week. )

Maybe this is one occasion where a player gets a '10'. Pukki power.

League One standard? Shows how little they know about football outside the Premier League. First goal was a fluke, second a lucky ricochet off of Trybull, third was Lewis and Hanley abandoning the zonal marking plan and going with men instead of defending space, two individual errors, not likely to be recurring and for the 4th we were understandably shell shocked and were playing against the European Champions. Yes Krul had to pull off some blinding saves and he's gonna have to pull a few of them off every match but so does every other keeper in this league. If they didn't every PL game would end up high scoring, its much easier to attack than defend. We need to tighten up on set pieces 100%, no arguments there. But in open play last year I'd argue we were very good. It was concentration issues just before and after half time that created an anomalous concession ratio. We also had a very young defence that is constantly improving who played behind a very fluid and attack minded midfield. Our defending is fine for the lower half of this league, our set piece defence is pretty poor, not League One standard though and it can be fixed if players follow instruction instead of instinct. If we do that and our players stay focused for the full 90 we won't concede all that many against teams outside the top 2 who can tear any team in the world apart if they feel like it. I'm going for a 3-1 win tomorrow, that'll hopefully shut the ignorant doubters up

Good luck to Diane, FF & everyone else. Doncaster to draw with Fleetwood (23/10). Norwich to win 3-1 (16/1).