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A Tale of Two Cities Its been a chilly old week here in Norfolk and this morning was no exception with a constant nagging wind from the north west. Mrs R said " you'll need your gloves and woolly hat today", but I didn't want to be encumbered with them and it didn't look like rain so I went off without. Wagner seems to have finally settled on his first choice eleven so an unchanged side was no surprise and I think most home supporters were in confident mode. Winning runs always come to an end however and to my thinking this game looked like being the hardest of the remaining fixtures. The Carrow Road playing surface looked in fine condition and both sides opened with some neat and tidy passing but it was the home side that made the first real chance in the fifth minute. Sainz made good ground down the left and a sharp ball inside to Sargent fell nicely for a low shot at goal from the edge of the area. Fortunately for O'Leary in the Bristol net the ball struck the foot of his right post and nobody could pick up the rebound before it was booted clear. It got the home crowd going but despite possession, City could not force further chances as several sweeping moves broke down before reaching the danger area. Just before the quarter hour Kenny slipped over and muffed a pass in midfield and the vistors sprang away with a crossfield pass that found a strker in acres on space. Gunn advanced and spread himself but fortunately the ball was lifted over him and well wide of the far post. It was a good chance and you couldn't help feel that we dodged a bullet there. At the other end Nunez whacked one over the bar after a corner had been cleared but then Kenny, who looked decidedly unsure of himself, misplaced a simple pass and presented the visitors with another opportunity only for Gunn to again come to the rescue. It was all a bit nip and tuck and the crowd became a little subdued. Most of City's danger was coming down the right where Stacey was getting well forward but he couldn't find a telling final ball. Around the half hour mark Gunn had to push a well direct free kick onto the bar and there was a bit of a scramble before the loose ball was cleared and then there was another one on one as Sainz lost out in midfield and the ball was flicked on to a Bristol man in acres of space. It really should have been nil one but somehow Gunn deflected the shot over the bar. The away side was certainly making the better chances and City could never really get control of the game. The boy said to me that it looked like a one goal game and that we didn't look like scoring it but just after the half hour a corner scooted right across the Bristol goalmouth without anyone getting a touch. The home side tried to turn up the wick but the closest they got was Gibsons header from a corner just before the break but he couldn't get proper contact and the ball flew over the angle. HT NORWICH 0 BRISTOL 0 The sun came out as the second half kicked off but that nagging wind was beginning to take its toll and it felt more like January than April. Mrs R's wise words began to ring in my ear but all I could do was grin and bear it. Thankfully the game warmed up a bit and City stormed forward but Sara could not convert when a sharp chance came. Then at our end more quick passing saw the visitors looking quite dangerous. I was hoping they might fade a bit but they were annoyingly persistant in midfield and stretched the home defence with balls from wing to wing. It felt like a goal was comimg and on fifty five minutes it did as Roberts was on hand to sweep a low shot across Gunn and into the far corner after some quick accurate passing split the City rearguard. Disappointing but at the time it seemed about right. Rowe was quickly brought on for Nunez as City set about rectifying the situation. Thankfully we didn't have to wait long as just three minutes later Sara's quick ball up to Sargent allowed the City striker to turn his man and run on into the area with just the keeper to beat. He might easily have taken it on but rolled the ball sideways to Sainz who couldn't miss an empty net. Rowe breathed a bit of new life into proceedings and almost gave City the lead as the home side pressed forward. O'Leary did well to go full length to his right to keep out a powerfully struck shot. Bristol however refused to die and Gunn had to make a remarkable double save to keep the honours even. He could only palm away a swirling ball that came in from the Bristol right and it looked for all the world that Twine would net from the rebound but somehow the City keeper was down to his right to deflect a goalbound shot for a corner. City still hadn't given up on a win and Stacey might have done better than fire over the bar after a sweeping City move had opened the Bristol defence. Fassnacht came on fro Sainz as the minutes ran down and I think both managers were beginning to think about settling for a point although Rowe nearly made an opportunity as he flashed a cross in front of goal but no yellow shirt could find a contact. I was reaching the first stages of hypothermia now and confess I made a bolt for the stairs as time ticked up to ninety minutes but thankfully the main action was now settled and to my mind I think I am more than happy with a point from what was a really tricky opponent playing with great confidence. Hull could only draw so three points from two games ought to be enough. Gunny my MOM, good points to Sara and Jack Stacey. Kenny did not have one of his better games but stuck with it and came through. I was glad to get back in the warm and Mrs R asked me if it was cold but I could see she didn't believe me when I said it wasn't too bad. Result Norwich City 1 Bristol City 1

I always say that yo-yo is currently the best option for NCFC. If that's the system, use it because we cannot beat it alone. Cherry-pick the best things from being in the PL, the tv money, the club being in the headlines more often, Worldwide exposure, the cream of players playing at a full Carrow Road and may be an exciting relegation battle at the end of a season as us 'underdogs' are piling up, and then the icing on the cake, parachute payments for failure. We might even get to see another Man. City (at home result.) More kudos than even beating the Binners at Carrow Road, imo. We might even fluke a second season or more. There always has to be ambition, realistic or not. Meanwhile, we could continue to finance the Cat 1. Academy, further upgrade Colney, raid South America for a few million outlays and, may be, even a new main stand. Self-funding includes using the PL in such a way and as I see it.

Five things have massively ruined the FA Cup for me in the last 20 or so years: Semi Finals always played at Wembley. This is ridiculous and a money-grab by the FA to to continue to pay for the white elephant New Wembley, also takes the prestige away from actually reaching the final. It was before my time, but I bet anyone who went to the Everton SF in 1989 or the Sunderland SF in 1991 would concur with this. Not playing The FA Cup Final on a stand-alone day, once all four leagues have finished. This shows complete contempt for the competition. Kick off times now moved to random times to cater for foreign TV coverage. This just damages attendances, lets be honest if a 3rd Round match is scheduled on a Monday at 8pm kick-off during the second week of January and isn't televised in the UK, no one is going to show any interest. VAR. No words needed for this one. Although how can VAR be used in some third/fourth/fitfth round matches and not others, no integrity in the standards of officiating in the competition ? and now Replays binned. As mentioned a stupid and hypocritical decision no doubt instigated by the PL clubs due to fixture congestion and travel. Yet they swan off to the Middle-East, East Asia or the USA every pre-season and jetset everywhere.

Only the first 3.

Amazingly Mr Liew manages to get through this piece about the 'worst-ever' PL teams without mentioning Norwich. Thought it was good though. Most of the below checks out. I know a few Ipswich fans and quite a lot of my time right now is being spent trying to convince them that this – right here – is the good bit. With a team they adore and a league they are tearing apart and a coach who is theirs and theirs alone. Not the grim struggle that comes after: desperately begging big clubs for loan players, the sheer cliff face to 35 points, hours spent waiting for VAR decisions, 21% possession against Manchester City, elite tactical fouling. Getting bossed 2-0 at home and feeling weirdly grateful. Chris Sutton suddenly deciding to have an opinion about you. Getting rinsed by agents. Getting beaten by literal nation states. For the teams at the bottom of the food chain, the Premier League has come to resemble an abusive relationship. https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2024/apr/23/for-sheffield-united-and-co-the-premier-league-brings-a-unique-brew-of-misery

VAR is the worst thing to happen to football.

Well worth a few minutes viewing for us old lads.

I have pretty much zero interest in it. They have drained the competition of any importance by taking out replays, scheduling it to fit in with the Premier League and UEFA competitions which mean it is no longer the showpiece final game of the season. I was in the Lion & Castle post match and saw it was on the screens but had no interest in the game. The top six PL clubs have big enough squads to meet with the demands of the competitions they are in. If they don't like it then don't enter it.

Another scandalous decision that benefits the Big PL clubs, at the expense of those in the lower divisions who will lose revenue as a result of this decision. Very sad indeed.

"People are saying we lost last nights match. Well that's Fake News, we won bigly" "I've been helping out in training as a motivational speaker in set piece training. Especially defending free-kicks... 'Build that wall! Build that wall!' "My transfer policy? I wanna buy that little guy Messi and make Mexico pay for it" "After we beat Ipswich in the play-off semi-finals, I called up their chairman and told him 'Shut up loser!'" "I have a great relationship with the players, so great, though they're not that keen on my locker room talk"

Good list but I fear you've missed a key word in the title 😉

Your telling me you haven't heard? I was told that everyone had heard? How could you not have heard about the word!??.........

Still not sure I agree with this

So please with this. He had my vote.

Clearly your (wrong) opinion re Mclean isn't shared by an overwhelming majority of the Norwich City support. Which is music to my ears

He was not desperate to leave he was desperate to be a starter. Bit of a difference.

Because of the poor technology used we don't know that he actually was offside, just that in the individual frame used, he may have been.

i'll do it..

Utterly farcical to have that wonderful moment for their fans ripped away by some sort of computer analysis measuring out a few millimetres. Football is about emotion in the moment not measurements afterwards. If it’s not humanly possible to see that as offside without a computer than its onside as far as I’m concerned

Look at me now. I could have been in prison 😉

Who are you and what have you done with Pete?

"Mark Robins is doing a great job at covfefe"

The Premier League is an awful, corrupt divison and would not be worth it if not for the money. I will get booed for saying I prefer watching us playing in the Championship and I accept it. Boo away, I dont care. The Championship is a more entertaining league.

A historic moment erased. A decision that epitomises the soul of football dying, caused by VAR.

Offside by a millimeter, f*ck off if that's in the spirit of the game. Man Utd deserved nothing from that and yet them and Ten Hag get completely let off the hook. Rapidly losing interest in football - everything consistently and continually going the way of the chosen few.

One of the reason they have such a deep, quality squad is because they finish at the top end of the premier league and in champions league places. That money is supposed to help support a squad that can be rotated with quality players coming in. I have zero sympathy. It adds to the challenge, yes, but he can rotate players and not pile it all on the same ones.

When he's been on the pitch he's barely looked like a footballer. He then got given 90 minutes in the u21s and anyone you speak to who saw that will tell you he was apparently one of the worst players on the pitch. Unfortunately a terrible signing at a really pivotal point in the season and worse still we lost an effective sub striker at the same time.

It’s quite simple. Wagner sees him in training every day and picks the team. He’s decided he doesn’t rate him and would prefer to play Sara behind Sargent when Barnes gets substituted. From what I’ve seen, and the league table, he’s making the right call.

Bloomin’ ‘eck, if you’d only turned to drink at the start of the season, we’d be in the automatic promotion spots now!

The signing of JUBWICKS75 on a season-long loan has been nothing but an unmitigated disaster. Despised by his new team-mates from the outset, owing to not committing fully to the team, he has been an unsettling influence in the dressing-room, often involved in unseemly scuffles. It is not surprising that he was asked to cut short the loan, last month, and return to his parent club. Bizarrely, he still turns up on matchdays, begging to be allowed back into the squad.

As a staunch promoter of Enlightenment values I'm against any restriction on freedom of speech except in those instances where there is incitement to commit a crime. As such I'm against the new "hate speech" laws introduced in Scotland as it seems obvious to me that you can express hate for something without it being the case that you intend to incite violence against those you hate (e.g. I hate religious fundamentalists and racists). However, in this case I'm not convinced of your argument. The Global Disinformation Index (GDI) has absolutely no power to censor anybody. It is a body that offers analysis of what it considers to be misleading information and makes suggestions to advertisers accordingly. Its recommendations remain entirely unenforceable, and entirely within the discretion of those businesses contemplating advertising with the organisation under consideration. Nothing GDI has said restricts UnHerd's freedom of speech. If UnHerd feels it has been libelled by GDI then there is a well established system of law to which it can turn to seek remedy. Are you really suggesting that GDI should have their freedom of expression restricted? Surely you would want to protect their right to speak about what they consider to be corrupt practices, wouldn't you? Frankly, there are far more insidious restrictions on freedom of speech than an organisation that attempts to reveal in the public domain what it considers to be disinformation. We had a perfect example yesterday in the case of Hugh Grant's settlement with News International. Murdoch used his financial might to make it impossible for Grant to reveal his evidence of crimes in court. By offering a settlement for a huge amount of money that Grant's lawyers told him would be well beyond what a judge would order, Murdoch was able to shut down exposure of those alleged crimes. Bizarrely, if Grant had won his case but been awarded an amount 1-pence lower than Murdoch's settlement offer, he would have been liable to pay all the legal costs of BOTH sides ( a figure estimated to be around £10 million). As such News International is able to continue with its disinformation project, claiming it did nothing wrong. Freedom of speech is very much under threat; more than at anytime I can remember in my lifetime. For example, Braverman's draconian measures in restricting the right to protest are completely at odds with her duplicitous claims yesterday to be a defender of free expression. Thank the Lord we still have the ECHR to protect that fundamental freedom, just as Churchill intended it to be.

Seeing the pride in the faces of those fans just makes you feel so glad that we support a team like them. A team where days like this mean the world . This is what real football is and real football fans are about. Lets hope they can do the undreamable

Finally

If this group of players gets us promoted the 6 points which we gained from Idah's crucial late winners against Hull, Bristol City and Cardiff will have been a vital component in us doing so....................................... but yeah, let's have another thread having a go at one of our Academy players..............

Delia once said, quite a while ago, that existing in the Championship causes the club to lose money. We would therfore have to completely re-structure our finance and lower our ambitions to survive. This could even mean losing our Cat 1. Status as an eventual scenario and therefore produce fewer promising youngsters and most certainly not enjoy the likes of a Sara or Sargent (both of whom cost millions,) and others. I could go on. The quality in the team would then inevitably deteriorate. Fortress Carrow Road might become a thing of the past, and we would be hammered by the Chumps big-boys in the way that we were by the PL elite. Would you enjoy the Championship as much then?

Whatever the specific issues regarding the OBR and Bank of England advice or non guidance, isn't it clear to us all on these threads that Liz Trusts isn't of PM calibre? Her various performances / interviews she offered in her brief 40 day plus tenure were very odd. She refused to speak often (sedated?) and even Hunt had to step in during a Commons appearance whilst she sat there on the front bench. She also appeared catatonic in moments. Thinking of the Chris Mason interview. I'm not a fan of her but I was concerned about her health I must admit. It was a very strange period in our political public life. Before her stint as PM she appeared to have become overcome with hubristic photo shoots that just made her look quite mad. Worse still, this woman has no remorse. It indicates a problem in her psyche surely? She may have got things wrong so why not just admit it, front up to mistakes she may have made. It would be healthier. Why start touring the US and uttering more of her thoughts. Again, it's a terrible look. One has to assume she is so consumed with herself? I'm sure details will emerge in many years to come. She is a gift for any opposition party.

What the powers that be wanted. Well done football 👏👏👏 Joke.

That's nothing... Good job he doesn't live on tatooine with 2 suns! 😉 20 years!!

Why do you have to make up nonsense? It's easier to watch and realise that the right wing guests these last few months, especially tory MPs, have been appalling and deserve all the noise they get. The audience have sussed out the lies and dishonesty they are being fed and are not putting up with it anymore. I'll agree that Bruce is awful and as @Faded Jaded Semi Plastic SOB says the non political guests are normally the only ones making good points. Stephanie Flanders for example. Even Peter Hitchens can talk sense on there.

Tory leadership latest

Ooops. Should have read to the end of the thread. So is it Israel or Palestine that’s underachieving…

Still better than one of Essex's threads, anyway.

This is yet just another of many reasons why the "big 6" should f**k off and join their European Super League. All of these shocking decisions made just to benefit the chosen few.

If this has to happen a simple rule that the lower-division team gets 100% of the gate receipts, regardless of where the tie is played, would be a great gesture that would cost the bigger clubs very little and make a big difference to the minnows. Chance of that happening: 0%, obviously. But it would be an easy win for a football regulator...

"The FA Cup final has also been moved to the penultimate weekend of the Premier League season. It will be played on a Saturday, and will also be independent of any Premier League matches, as will the Friday before the final "to allow focus on the build-up to the showpiece event". "The FA Cup is our biggest asset," said FA chief executive Mark Bullingham." So the FA Cup is the biggest asset and a showpiece event but will be played BEFORE the last Premier League fixtures... Hmmmm... Call me old fashioned but if it's THAT important you have it the week AFTER the last Premier League fixtures.

She's also being investigated for; Being in possession of a northern accent. Walking on the cracks in the pavement. Loitering with intent to use a pedestrian crossing. Coughing without due care and attention. Wearing bright clothes in a built up area after 11PM. Just lock her up and throw away the key, it'll save us all time.

Cambridge says no.

VAR would have picked the right frame.😉

The River End has always been the River End as far as I am concerned, except when it became "The Reeves Stand", Riverside is a different thing altogether..........