Alex Neil, your time is up

Norwich City suffered their third straight league defeat on Saturday afternoon as Leeds United, who also knocked City out of the EFL cup two weeks ago, ran out 3-2 winners at Carrow Road. A rare Kyle Lafferty goal in the 89th minute looked to have earned Norwich a point, before Ronaldo Vieira’s injury-time strike consigned Alex Neil’s side to defeat and heaped further pressure on the under-fire boss.

All the talk in the build-up to the game was that Neil was going to make changes. After last weekend’s 5-0 horror show at Brighton, how could he not? In the post-match interview from last Saturday, Neil said, I quote, “I’ve given them chances in the last few games. It is now time to change personnel - they showed a lack of fight, that is not something that I associate with my teams.” With this said, you can understand the dismay of Norwich supporters when the line-up’s were revealed to show that Neil had made just one, one, unenforced change. That one unenforced change being Robbie Brady - who has been arguably our worst performer this season - in for Jacob Murphy who, about three weeks too late, was finally given a rest. The back five, who performed so horrifically on the south-coast, each retained their place.

The first half wasn’t too bad. Our defending, as always, was comedic and Leeds could have scored numerous times in the opening stages, but we looked similarly threatening going forward. When Robbie Brady’s header looped over the helpless Robert Green and into the corner of the Leeds net it was difficult to say that the lead was deserved, but it was gladly received. The following ten minutes saw a far-improved Norwich as Alex Pritchard was getting heavily involved and dictating some fast-flowing City attacks. Unfortunately, that ten-minute spell was as good as it got for Norwich as the following 60 minutes of the contest saw them return to their disjointed, hopeless worst. Half-time came and saw City go in a goal to the good but, in truth, it had been yet another unconvincing display and there was a sense of inevitability about how the second half would transpire.

Within seconds of the restart Leeds were almost level as Kemar Roofe’s header flew inches past Michael McGovern’s left post: the tone was now set for the rest of the game. As the Leeds pressure grew, Norwich’s defence looked increasingly shaky and it was only a matter of time before the game was level - Pontus Jansson’s free header looping over Louis Thompson on the City far post making it 1-1 in the 58th minute. The momentum was now all with Garry Monk’s side and as has been demonstrated repeatedly this season, constraining momentum - or “weathering the storm”, so to speak - is not something that Norwich are good at. As such, it came as little surprise when Chris Wood fired the visitors in front with little over quarter-of-an-hour remaining. Martin Olsson was far too easily beaten down the left, before Ryan Bennett - who else - lost track of Wood allowing Luke Ayling to find the big striker with ease.

Having witnessed the turnaround, and the shambolic nature in which the lead had been gifted to Leeds, the Carrow Road crowd began to turn; a chorus of “you’re getting sacked in the morning” emanating from the Snakepit. Neil can count himself lucky that the Leeds following was vociferous and as such drowned out most discontent aimed at him from the City faithful.

As the clock began to edge towards 90, Neil - exhausted of ideas and evidently full of desperation - resorted to bringing on the man that he has been so desperate not to use throughout his tenure: Kyle Lafferty. Within just three minutes of coming on the Northern Irishman had leveled proceedings as Cameron Jerome knocked down a Hoolahan set-piece into the path of Lafferty who duly dispatched it past Green. For an 88th minute equaliser against Leeds the celebrations were subdued and that is largely because the performance, regardless of the result, had illustrated our huge frailties (and Alex Neil’s incompetence) once again, and whether we lost or drew mattered very little in the grand scheme of things.

When Leeds proceeded to go straight back up to our end and score a winner just two minutes later, there was a feeling of resignation within Carrow Road. It wasn’t even a surprise. The goal was so, so poor and yet so, so befitting of our performance. Before any Norwich players had even realised that the Leeds free-kick, 35-yards out, had been taken, the ball had been knocked out to Vieira and smashed home into the bottom right-hand corner of McGovern’s (who yet again, should have saved it) goal. Not one yellow shirt was prepared and in position for the shot to be taken: no organisation, no leadership and, quite frankly, no hope.

Alex Neil’s time is up. Behind Newcastle, our squad is undoubtedly the second best in the league and yet they are putting in incompetent performance after incompetent performance. Yes, we may be 5th, but unless drastic changes occur we will be in the bottom-half of the table come December. We simply cannot expect to defend so poorly and expect to pick up points. There is no coming back from here for the Scot - any more games that he is given from now will be nothing more than delaying the inevitable.