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How many of Steipermann, Hernandez, Zimmerman, Trybull or Vrancic would we have said that about though during Farke's first season? Foreign players in the first season here often struggle, its a lot of games at a fast pace with no winter break while living in a new country. Takes some adjusting to.

Starting his fifth game in a row today and I've seen Forest fans saying he's been one of their best players. I'm pleased for the lad after a rough start, plus better chance of us getting our add on fees too. Let's hope he keeps it up.

It was with much relief that the mid season transfer window closed without very much wailing and gnashing of teeth from those of a yellow persuasion. It at least gives us a chance to salvage something from a season that just a few weeks ago appeared to be heading for the dustbin. The improved weather lifted the spirits and there were enough patches of blue in the sky this morning to mend a pair of sailors trousers, although it did cloud up a bit as kick off time approached. Unlike so many games this season that started in a cagey manner, this one was quite lively from early doors. Collins in the Coventry net was soon called into action when Fassnacht sent a cross into the box and the visitors had to step up to bundle the ball away. Then Sargent had a shot blocked before the visitors sprung away down to our end but nobody could get on the end of a low cross. The teams looked evenly matched with some nice quick passing from both sides and it looked like City might go in front when Kenny found Sargent in space but he couldn't get enough on it to trouble Collins. The City striker was looking a real handful but it was a bit worrying when he took a knock and went quiet for a while. Thankfully he appeared to shake it off after a few minutes. You couldn't complain about the quality as City strung together some sweeping moves but unfortunately they couldn't quite knit it together in the final third and the pace of the game dropped for a while as O'hare and the dangerous Sakamoto began to pull some strings. Sara found an opening on the half hour after Nunez had nicked the ball but his shot was easily saved by the well placed Coventry keeper. City were having the bulk of possession but the visitors looked dangerous on the break and Gunn had to beat way a shot from his near post as Coventry exerted pressure down their left side. Most of the visitors opportunities came from the home side giving the ball away, an old failing I know but very frustrating that we can't eliminate this from our game. At the half I thought it was fairly encouraging but we needed to keep a lid on O'hare in the second half but oh deary me, did that thought come back to haunt me. Coventry set off with some purpose and before City had settled they hustled into a one nil lead. Stacey's throw made it difficult for Kenny and that man O'hare seemed to squirm between defenders in the box before finishing low into the far corner. It seemed to flatten us for a few minutes and it might have got worse as City looked ragged and defensive dithering allowed Wright to find space ten yards out. Somehow Gunn got a foot on it to deflect the goalbound shot away. Wagner stirred things up just before the hour mark with Barnes and Hernandez coming on for Nunez and Fassnacht and it paid dividends almost immediately. Barnes combined with Sara on the left and when the cross came in he hit it sweetly enough but it deflected up off a defender and fell nicely for Sargent to smash the ball past Collins to level things up. The crowd now got into it again as City put together some decent moves and Sainz began to become more involved. Stacey might have done better than blaze a cross into the crowd when well placed but it was City exerting the pressure now. With twenty minutes left a superb ball from Kennt appeared to put Sargent through on goal but a Scything tackle from behind brought him down just outside the area. Kitching couldn't have been surprised when Ref, Gavin Ward produced a straight red to the delight of the crowd. Sara's free kick looked on target but was a few inches too high and clipped the bar with the keeper beaten. To their credit the visitors didn't sit back and when Palmer came on he spurred Coventry forward and was only denied a goal by a fine diving save from Gunn. The home side came back again and Hernandez seemed anxious to get his name on the score sheet but was wasteful when well set. It felt like a goal would come however and with six minutes left it was Barnes who combined with McCallum, who had just replaced Gianoullis, Sainz flicked the ball on to Barnes who trapped it on the edge of the Coventry box before laying it perfectly for Sainz to whip a shot round Collins into the far corner of the net. The boy is definetly a special talent. The home side saw it through comfortably enough and it was good to hear the crowd singing again. Have we finally started to knit things together again? only time will tell but its nice to have something to cling on to as the second half of the season winds down. With players back to fitness perhaps we still have something to fight for. Lots of decent performances today but Sarge my MOM. He always looks like theres a goal in him.

Written off far too quickly, mainly due to his age being an easy stick. He was excellent with Sargent for the first 6 or 7 games this season. Sargent got injured and Barnes started to struggle, before getting injured too. He then tried to come back from injury with Sargent still out, and in a struggling side. Now Sargent is back and firing again, Barnes looks to have regained fitness and guess what - he’s starting to look good again. I mean it was never rocket science to understand, was it?

I've slagged off Barnes often enough on here, so it's only fair to say that he was excellent against Coventry, probably the best I've seen him in a Norwich shirt. He was a major factor - perhaps the major factor - in turning that game around. Was the fact that he hadn't spent the first half tiring himself out the reason for his clinical performance? Is playing both him and Onel for the second half of games the way forward?

the more times I watch Stacey taking that throw in back into our danger area leading to their goal the more idiotic it becomes.

Sorry but that's nonsense. When Labour came to power in 1997 they inherited 80,000 open immigration cases. They expanded the Home Office and employed agencies and got the number down to around 10,000. In their last 2 years they returned 30,000 people back where they came from. 13 years later the number is back up to around 100,000 and 3,000 were returned home in the last year. That is solely because the Civil Servants and agency workers who used to carry out this task have been removed from their posts. If I was very cynical I might think that they know that huge numbers of immigrants sitting in hotel rooms is quite useful when it comes to elections.

Real City fan here. I think the consensus amongst the traveling Sky Blues was that Kitching deserved nothing less. FWIW I thought both teams were evenly matched. Both goal scorers for you were well worth their pay packet. One thing of note that Robins was angry about…There were no hand shakes after the game. Having drawn against Bristol and lost against you it is disappointing to say the least. ‘Also, having been to a few games at Carrow Road, I’m impressed with the segregation, or lack of more to the point. Past times it got a bit stupid with our naughty boys taking seats near the barriers. Not so this time. It should be like that all the time. Well managed by the stewards.

No need to persevere with that, it was the wrong word to use (see above) and we've already retracted.

I've just investigated, and it is indeed the wrong word to use: "The word 'holocaust' comes from ancient Greek and means 'burnt offering'. Even before the Second World War, the word was sometimes used to describe the death of a large group of people, but since 1945, it has become almost synonymous with the murder of the European Jews during the Second World War." We'll need to retract.

For God's sake! How on earth can they be expected to beat Maidstone without Hirst? Try to be reasonable 😂

What we need him to probably be is a no.8 breaking forward from midfield, whilst being protected behind him with a proper screening defensive midfielder. Unfortunately the club have decided one is not needed this season so whenever he is playing deeper he is embroiled with defensive responslbilities because we have nobody at the club capabale of doing it alone i.e a Skipp or Tettey. Wherever we think Sara should be deployed, we can surely agree he shouldnt be operating on the edge of our own penalty box

PUPs and friends have in the Lion & Castle. Unfortunately there was no one to make a speech..

Or maybe he does know? Looked poor, uncomfortable and gave the ball away without creating anything in the 10 position. Looked far more comfortable deeper and joining in with play from deep (something several of us have commented on) which led to the first goal, of course. Shout out to Barnes as well. He's been called some ridiculous stuff by our fans online but he was a gamechanger today. In all seriousness I think there's a horses for courses scenario where Sara will sometimes play as a 10 and sometimes deeper. But so far, much prefer him being deeper (I think our fullbacks do too).

I’m well aware of that, that’s why I think we should leave them as they’re no longer fit for purpose. It just concerns me that an increasing number of peoples opinions towards uncomfortable news stories should be to not mention them in case it makes their opinions look bad

As Hogesar says, Webber deserves credit for bringing in Sainz, Sara, Gunn and Sargent, but against that there is the toxic atmosphere that he helped to create between the club and the fans (and perhaps also, if we are to believe the rumours, within the club). He had to go before we could start to rebuild for the future. He is talented, but IMO will always fail long-term because of the way he operates. His career will be one of fantastic beginnings followed by conflict and ultimate failure. Personally, for all his undoubted talent, I am so glad he is out of our club forever.

Let's start by not using a throw-in to launch the ball into our own penalty area. Sometimes the sheer creativity that our defenders show in finding new ways to screw up is really impressive.

Credit to Wagner for digging in. He's prepared to make himself unpopular sometimes with rather negative tactics, but it's largely worked. With the attacking players we have we should be making the top 6, but with the defence and the way we still give away silly goals (again yesterday), we possibly won't.

Obviously I was talking about Arsenal here...🙈

I love American ads, when I next go I'm heading straight to the nearest Arbys 😃

Irreplaceable. I hope we keep him for a proper promotion push next season. I fear we might struggle, though.

He’s fuming? Ref couldn’t wait to send his player off apparently.. the fact it was blatant didn’t register… and according to him we were really lucky and Cov didn’t deserve to lose. Sour grapes, and then some! Thats a bit disappointing, coming from him.

Same people declared Stacey better than Aarons after literally one game. They're both exciting, young, talented wingers. Can't we just enjoy them!

Yet, you were the poster that made a post about people who must be 5ft 1 tall. And you also referenced me. Not once ever had I (not will ever in the future) make such posts about you. Now what is my problem for you? It was that I stated I disliked Trump as the narcissist I believed he is. I couldn't care less about wokeness....it's not something I ever think about others, certainly I don't use the term to label people. People love labelling. And you may need to think again whether your own posts are not hypocrisy. That is, you don't like different opinions. People's different opinions make up the world. Hardly any of them are ever the enemy you seem to want to find. Most people on this forum if you met them would be friendly and understanding. When they post they need to try and express themselves. In writing it is often difficult to express nuances or be misunderstood. Look at how emails in business can sometimes be read with all kinds of responses. If you're looking for enemies you'll always find them. But they'll be in your head mainly. People project all kinds of things on others before accepting themselves fully. And my projection from you as referenced was that I was an inadequate "short" person. Probably best you don't spend any time responding to such an inadequate person as it's obviously beneath you.

Agreed. Would happily let him go this summer.

The Conservatives created this mess and then they made it worse. Before 2010 we had a functioning asylum processing system, Cameron dismantled it and subsequent Tory Home Office ministers kept introducing policies that looked good in the headlines of the right wing media but in practice were bad laws that allowed the courts to challenge them. The latest ridiculous idea of spending millions of pounds that, if it's ever implemented, will send about 20 people to Rwanda is a perfect example of how sh!t the Tories are.

You may think so but that's simply not the case. It is the case with a certain part of the population (mainly baby boomers) but the vast majority are far more concerned with other issues. Please don't take my word for it, there are opinion polls and underlying data readily available. You should perhaps also bear in mind that most migration to this country is legal. Around 700,000 people (net of departures) were granted work and student visas last year. The number arriving on small boats was around 25,000. The government continue to bang the drum about this because it's basically all they have left. The reality is that they're just desperately trying to get people like you to vote for them. The fact that Labour is so far ahead in the polls should really tell you how most people think. PS. the last large opinion poll showed support for the Conservative Party at 14% among the under 40's

I was never compelled to join in scapegoating the player simply because it would have been hypocritical since I was fully behind his signing and the reasons for it. Little he has achieved since really contradicted that view, except for the fact that his contribution did seem to suffer a bit with Sargent's absence, and he is most definitely not suited to the one up front role, which we knew in any case. Yesterday he was fundamental in getting the three points. He has a role this season for sure. He will continue to justify his signing this season for sure, I am not so certain about our need for him next season, even presuming we remain in the Championship. This would of course depend upon any player losses and the impact of Van Donk or any of the youngsters breaking through. If we need him in a pivotal role next season, we will be in the do-do for sure.

For anyone who hasn't seen it it's worth watching this from his last match for Giresunspor. Most will probably know that we'd already been reported as signing him if they were relegated, which they were of course despite winning... From about 3 minutes 40

Seems to be an awful lot (all ?) of those anti club whiners absent tonight. Surely it doesn't take that long to put on clean (dry) undergarments.

Wagner deserves some credit on his name. Think back to some of the weaknesses we had under Farke and to some degree also, Smith. 1. When in the Champs, we often were an easy three points for the top teams - especially under Farke. Well, we've drawn against Southampton twice, beaten Hull twice, drawn and beaten Coventry, drew with Ipswich, were beaten by Leeds twice but only by one goal (and we were 2-0 up in one game), and swapped wins with West Brom. Looks to me like we're fighting them on better terms now. 2. Granted, this was in the Premier with Farke, but we rarely turned a game around from a losing position. We've been doing pretty well at fighting back this season. Topsy-turvy game at Southampton, then came back from a goal down to draw at ours when they were on a formidable unbeaten run. Went behind against a Coventry side that were unbeaten in some time, but we turned it right round. Went behind against Ipswich at their ground and they were also on a hot streak of form - and we turned that round too. This team isn't as effective or as pretty to watch as a Farke team in full flow, but they fight well for the right to play. 3. We often said we never had a plan B. Then Wagner's got us playing some decent counter-attacking football when he actually had something approaching his strongest team available. Putting ten behind the ball isn't pretty but sometimes you really are better off just trying to keep the opponent in front of you and trying to pick off the errors. Moreover, it's been clear in hindsight that he's been trying to make us a counter-attacking side. The experiment with Placheta at left-back was clearly to put some pace on a break, but his lack of defensive awareness in that Cardiff game showed it wasn't on. Then he decided to try out McLean at centre-half against Bristol City. Plenty were, shall we say, intrigued at that call, but many of us nowadays seem to think that was a good move as it enabled Kenny to come forward with the ball with some space and be able to pick better passes to get us started. Yet here against Coventry, we didn't sit back at all. Faced with a similar team to Southampton in terms of being on a formidable unbeaten run (although no disrespect, Southampton are a stronger side than Coventry), he didn't put everyone behind the ball unlike that Southampton game and in the end we got a deserved win. He clearly does try to have a plan B or so to handle different opponents, and now he has many of his team back, we're seeing the flexibility his team can have. Sure, it isn't as pretty as some of the stuff we watched under Farke. It probably couldn't ever be. Farke's shadow still unintentionally lingers long in the memories of many with their comparisons. This set of players do have a regular schnitzer in them. If they didn't, they wouldn't be playing for us. But they're an engaging set who are scrapping for the shirt, and I can't ask for more than that. Everything else is just aesthetics.

Not grim if you live in Preston though!!

Couldnt happen to a nicer set of fans. They still sing songs about us being late?

Wealthy man who can have his pick of the ladies has affair! I’m sure nothing like this has ever happened before! In all honesty why would you care about his personal life? He could father a child in every continent for all I care, as long as he scores the winning goal in the final of the Euros in the summer

I get the feeling he's not walking around in public anymore, that's for sure. Chances are he may be getting help and is laying low. Either that or given that half his face has including an entire eye has been melted off by battery acid and he has presumbly not seen proper medical attention there's also quite a chance he's dead

I hope so. He's got club legend written all over him... just needs to do the time!!

Foreign aid was a good policy. Helping countries to advance and fix some of their problems through financial aid, meaning less people will want to leave. We should bring that back.

Sara. But number eight isn't the only position on the pitch.

I am not a fan of the 34 year old. If you are playing out from the back he is not the target man you need as he is two yards too slow. Yesterday when I saw him stripping off to come on as a substitute I moaned that whatever the question, Barnes is not the answer. But he proved me wrong, his inclusion turned the game into victory.

Allowing the Church to have any say? I’m not sure they do, other than perhaps a lawyer using a vicar as a witness at an asylum application hearing to attest that the formerly Muslim applicant has attended their church regularly, engaged positively and perhaps even been baptised. That then ties the hands of the Judge if he/she considers that a christian could be persecuted if they were returned to their Islamic country of origin (assuming they believe the story). A transparent scam on the part of the migrant, their activist lawyer and the “charities” that support the whole sordid enterprise.

I don't think Sara is particularly good at the '#10' but I believe that's because it plays as a #9.5. The way we have the role is more of a second striker as opposed to an advanced midfielder, which I think Sara would excel at. I'd still like a more intentional 3 in midfield, one sat behind a double act containing Sara, that allows him to occupy his preferred spaces. However, credit to Wagner as Barnes looked sharp as nails when he came on- perhaps a side effect of playing reduced minutes? And linked up to great affect with Sara once dropped further back. Probably the best I've seen Barnes in a while. There are roles for everyone going forward, I'd just like to see Sara playing a Sara role as opposed to a pseudo-Barnes role.

Making these conclusions after his first game there in many months is a bit silly and rash, just like it would be a bit silly if we wrote off Hooijdonk if his first start isn't great. I otherwise agree that he didn't have the best of games, but I liked the way we looked with McLean and Nunez together behind him and there's no way we should be leaving an £8m Brazilian on the bench, so the smart and logical thing to do would be to persevere and judge the change after several games. It also doesn't do justice to how well Coventry defended today, and how well they defend most weeks, outside of the top 6 (they are now 7th) only one team has conceded fewer goals than them.

Does it matter- since you described Sainz as a useless player from the German second division and we all know you are always right!

it all makes for a pleasant weekend. Long may it continue.

saves here https://www.skysports.com/football/norwich-city-vs-coventry-city/485055

It’s his first game there in forever, maybe no need to be smug about it? Also, not sure why you’re so keen to dive to Wagner’s defence, but for a super 90 mins from Gunn we could easily have lost today.

I couldn't care less if somebody scores or assists with their love pistol as long as its at the right end.

Square ends on zippers.

Great signing for them... annoyingly.