The House That We Built

[Canary On The Wire 0]

For me, what Norwich City Football Club has been about since we returned to the Premier League (you can stick your myths of Lambert and his all out attack) is resolute defending, keeping it tight and ensuring that we give the big boys a problem home and away.

A performance akin to the one against Arsenal I would have taken, a fight where a draw was possible but we found ourselves ultimately outclassed and soundly beaten. I don''t care what flak I get for this, but I would have taken a loss by 4 or 5 absolutely any day.

I don''t care if we lose to Chelsea, Utd, Arsenal and Man City, and I don''t care if those losses are by three or four goals- but seven is absolutely unacceptable by anyone''s standards.

But beat West Ham and it all looks very different. Look at the league table, look how tight the league is. One win and we can go as high as 12th, that position we praised Paul Almighty so richly for.

If the brigade of ludicrousness who believe we should have a divine right to beat the best teams in the land now that we''ve spent a bit of cash can climb down from their ivory towers and accept that we JUST. ARE. NOT. THAT. GOOD...the way to look at it is this.

We should have beaten Stoke. We did.

We shouldn''t have beaten Chelsea. We didn''t.

We shouldn''t have beaten Arsenal. We didn''t.

We should have beaten Cardiff. We didn''t.

We shouldn''t have beaten Man City. We didn''t.

To me that looks like CH has achieved 80% of what was expected, achieving 4 points from a realistic 6. Beat West Ham- a game we should win at home...and isn''t that 7 from a realistic 9 and an 83% success rate against our expectations?

Those with a deep seated vendetta against our manager will never accept that by and large he''s doing what''s asked of him- and all so willingly let results like today distort reality. I firmly believe we will get the win against West Ham, and the house that we built still stands strong.

[SeattleCanary 0]

Losing, and losing heavily can become a bad habit hard to break. You are talking about expectations and results like its just a win/draw/lose scenario. These are heavy defeats here, with little fight back to help our GD column.

Where does the self belief and motivation come from to beat the teams on a similar level to us? Any opponent in this league right now will lift themselves to perform, and keep piling on the misery. The way we perceive Palace and Sunderland means others in and around us look at us like that too.

How does anything positive stem out of conceding 11 goals and scoring none in just a week? This 7 points you speak of, it''s easier said than done.

[!M.u.s.t.a.r.d_M.a.t.t.e.r.s! 0]

Canary On The Wire wrote: "Beat West Ham and it all looks very different."I totally agree with you. If all next weekend results follow the expectations of oddschecker, the points table will look like this:Swansea 14Villa 14Norwich 11West Ham 10Fulham 10Stoke 9Sunderland 4Palace 3

[Hannibal II 0]

achieved 80% of whats excepted? your high right? Hull, Villa, Cardiff, all games we should of won. The others all every Norwich fan expects is to be competitive in every fixture that doesn''t mean we have to win every game just at least look like we want to win every game. too often under Hughton we no show. We wouldn''t of done any worse putting out the Youth cup team from last season yesterday at least you could of put that down to youthful inexperience rather than the 40 million or so the first team has cost.

[PortlandCanary 0]

It''s tough. I agree with you in spirit. We had nobility in defeat with Chelsea and Arsenal. The loss at Hull and the way we didn''t even show up against ''Spurs though...I dunno. I''ve seen flashes of greatness, but all too often we''ve looked adrift. It''s not just that we lost today, it''s how we lost.

[Rock The Boat 1,325]

We shouldn''t "expect" to win any game at this level. Those that think that way are getting a little ahead of themselves. Outside the top six clubs the competition is very fierce and the dividing line between success and failure is wafer-thin.

Confidence may be the difference between winning and losing. So if you boo your side you are not helping matters very much, in fact you are inflicting damage on your own team.

So the Man City game was a terrible result and a very, very poor performance from most every player in a Norwich shirt. What is important is how we react to this result. If the players come out against West Ham and fight for whatever it is they hold dear, then we have the quality to win. If we can maintain a consistent performance throughout the season we will be ok.

But if we now rollover and surrender then our season is over.