NOT A FAIR REFLECTION.

[Alex Moss 2,165]

Having watched most of that on Fox TV I think the scoreline flattered to decieve. 4-0? Give me a break!, Chelsea didn''t look like a team worth £1,000,000,000,000,000 more than us, some of our play was excellent. And time again, we''ve seen the smaller team hit the post and crossbar and not get that lucky break. Which is exactly what happened to us today. Otherwise we were brilliant, especially the first half, and that scoreline flattered Chelsea something chronic. Well done Norwich, they did us proud today.

[7rew 0]

Totally agree mate. just spoken to a chelsea support who was there and was impressed by us. "didn''t disgrace themselves at all" was his verdict which given the score is high praise.I felt 2-0 was a fair reflection of the match, shame about the stoppage time really. story of our season and all that.Fozzy looked to have a good free kick on him.Thanks for the Internet links everyone, abit jumpy but very useful.

[Evil Monkey 52]

Well said, Alex, I think you''ve probably just said what we were all thinking.  Although I thought 4-0 would be the maximum reasonable scoreline before the game, it''s annoyed me a lot more simply because we did ourselves proud today and were unlucky not to get at least 2, both from Croft.  Most of the goals were simply quality finishes, the like of which most teams in the world would find hard to defend against.Well done, City, and well done Grant for proving our selection fears wrong.  Hughes and Etuhu had excellent games, for the most part, and every player today looked proud to be wearing the shirt.  All we could ask for before the game was a bit of passion and for the team to have a good crack at winning, and they did just that.On The Ball City!!!

[Alex Moss 2,165]

Yep, I thought Hughes had a pretty good game, Etuhu played well but I thought that Fotheringham showed some brilliant touches, some good bits of skill late on, twisting and turning to get out from between 2 Chelski players and setting Croft on his way...and Fozzy''s obviously got an excellent free kick on him (not like Safri''s today!), thought we''d pulled one back with that effort!. Dublin unlucky at the end with the header, and saw some good touches from Brown. Thought Drury had a good game and made some excellent blocks. Most annoying things for me today were the woodwork and TWO stoppage time goals...even 2-0 I thought was slightly harsh...but 4????!!. We must give Cech credit though for some good goalkeeping, he almost kept Chelsea in the game!

[chipster 0]

city were superb, just lack of a finnishing touch but i thought the stand out players where saf, hughes and etuhu, a little dissapointed with lappin although we did look really solid defending with him in front of dury, and hucks looked lost up front, a real dilema for pg as hucks looks class comming in from the left and once we got support for brown we started to look dangerous, brown held up ball really well and worked hard just didnt look like getting a crack at goal and after his touch for the second his head dropped, fozzy looked like he has an eye for a pass and really added a pace to our attacks with crisp passing ,all in all if we can repeat that performance for the rest of the season i think we are looking solid to build for the future, great to see no thorne or wly on the bench at last, lets see if we can get a couple of loanees in with the money made from the game?

[london Canary 0]

I was there today and all i can say is that i am proud to be a norwich fan, and i havn''t felt that for ages!!

[Alex Harvey-Jones 0]

I agree - just got back from the game! 4-0 was very harsh and not a fair reflection. 2-0 would have been about right although Norwich had some great chances to score and hit the post twice! Travelled back with a lot of Chelsea fans who also admitted that they thought 4-0 flattered them! Well done Norwich.

[Alex Moss 2,165]

It''s not only the Chelsea fans that were complimentary about us, Mourinho will have some kind words for us on MOTD tonight aswell (but don''t hold your breath on Lawrenson though). It made me think, were there any players today that may of caught the eye of Premier League teams? Etuhu to Bolton...Wouldn''t of said that last week! Funny how he played so well today, hope we see more of him now.

Another thing, were any of you on here singing to Dion at the end of the match?? Because I''ll tell you what, you could not hear a single Chelsea chant when our supporters were in full voice...It was great to hear that over the ''net!.

[XXL16 0]

We are losing 0-4 but you can see they scored those 2 in the last few minutes, because we change to play 3-4-3 and must leave grap at the back. Anyway I don''t have hard feeling because we play some better football than any Premiership teams when they travel to Stamford Bridge. Andy Hughes and Youseff Safri were outstanding in my words.

[london Canary 0]

[quote user="Alex"]

It''s not only the Chelsea fans that were complimentary about us, Mourinho will have some kind words for us on MOTD tonight aswell (but don''t hold your breath on Lawrenson though). It made me think, were there any players today that may of caught the eye of Premier League teams? Etuhu to Bolton...Wouldn''t of said that last week! Funny how he played so well today, hope we see more of him now.

Another thing, were any of you on here singing to Dion at the end of the match?? Because I''ll tell you what, you could not hear a single Chelsea chant when our supporters were in full voice...It was great to hear that over the ''net!.

[/quote]

At the end the players came over to the fans and applauded us. Dion was the last player to leave the pitch so he got a special chant from us, that would have been what you heard. The chelsea fans hardly sang ALL game, a little when they took the lead. It seems they only have two chants. Bunch of day trippers!

The fans were brilliant, as i live in the capital i don''t get to go very oftern but i loved it yesterday.

Give me "little old Norwich" any day!

[Alex Moss 2,165]

[quote user="london Canary"][quote user="Alex"]

It''s not only the Chelsea fans that were complimentary about us, Mourinho will have some kind words for us on MOTD tonight aswell (but don''t hold your breath on Lawrenson though). It made me think, were there any players today that may of caught the eye of Premier League teams? Etuhu to Bolton...Wouldn''t of said that last week! Funny how he played so well today, hope we see more of him now.

Another thing, were any of you on here singing to Dion at the end of the match?? Because I''ll tell you what, you could not hear a single Chelsea chant when our supporters were in full voice...It was great to hear that over the ''net!.

[/quote]

At the end the players came over to the fans and applauded us. Dion was the last player to leave the pitch so he got a special chant from us, that would have been what you heard. The chelsea fans hardly sang ALL game, a little when they took the lead. It seems they only have two chants. Bunch of day trippers!

The fans were brilliant, as i live in the capital i don''t get to go very oftern but i loved it yesterday.

Give me "little old Norwich" any day!

[/quote]

I''m sure I heard this chant close to the end of the match, I turned the live webstream off as soon as the match finished so didn''t get to see the players thank the fans!. I think I must of heard a different chant but it was a simple ''Dion'' I think and picked up as soon as he had a late header saved from Cech. Anyway, credit to all and good to see the players appreciated the support!.

[ZLF 271]

Superb, brilliant.   We need to keep things in perspective here.  Since when has football been fair?  We have played well and lost,  played badly and won and played appallingly yet lost only 1-0 when it could have been 6.

City did battle well and worked hard to close down chelsea, we sat deep to restrict them space but castrated our own attacking intent in doing so. At the end of the day we were outclassed and while 4-0 was over flattering to chelski it was a comfortable win. It was a valiant performance - but nothing else.

A 4-0 (or 2-0) defeat is no going to kick start our season and we still sit perilously close to relegation in 19th position and continue to ship goals. 

There were positives to take but I am left with the question as to why our players can lift themselves to play against chelsea yet wont against colchester?   We have 8 crucial games in the next 25 days - 4 at home and 2 crucial away games at relegation contenders. If the same valiant performances are not evident here then these players priorities are not in the right place. 

A first clean sheet of the year is a must before then end of that period. 

 

[Tumbleweed 106]

I''m normally with you Zipper but not on this. I thought we were the better side in the first half, Saf and Etuhu immense in the middle breaking up their play and combining well with Lappin and Croft. Having only one recognised striker and playing Huckerby where he was ineffective stymied us in the end, but we had plenty of possession around their box.

Chelsea were undeniably more skilful individually, faster and more incisive. But we had played two hours of intense football only a few days before and you would expect their fitness levels to be higher. they do have a somewhat different calibre of player but it didn''t always show on the pitch. Robben in particular had some nice mazy runs but fell over a lot and whinged for a penalty- he was well marshalled by Hughes.

At 2-0 up the game was sterile for a bit, but we got back into it excellently and launched a mini wave of attacks on their goal- it was obvious that having 4 up front was going to leave us exposed at the back. 1-0 and out of the cup is, after all, the same as 10-0 and out the cup so goal difference matters not.

However we weren''t outclassed- the Chelsea prawn brigade I was sitting with next to the directors box all thought a fair result would have been 2-1. They also generally thought Robben was diving and whinging way too much as well by the way.