Defeat at Aston Villa leaves City in the bottom three as fans begin to turn

Since I have been following Norwich City we have been relegated on three different occasions, twice from the Premier League and once from the Championship. As a fan of a side so familiar with relegation, during each fateful campaign you can always look back and identify one or two momentum-shifting, relegation-consigning defeats. While I don’t think Saturday’s woeful 2-0 defeat at Villa Park was quite of that magnitude, purely because it’s still only February, I still got a very familiar sinking feeling.

For the first time ever under Alex Neil’s reign, fans have begun to turn. Upon the blowing of Martin Atkinson’s whistle signalling the end of another dismal City display loud boos rang out from the 3,000 strong away following positioned in the far corner of Villa Park. The few players that braved to come over and acknowledge the traveling support were roundly jeered as the fans took the opportunity to make their feelings known. I can only imagine how Carrow Road will react should we lose a seventh successive game next weekend - the atmosphere at the club and among the fans is threatening to turn poisonous. If the fans are lost, there is only one way we are heading - we saw that during Chris Hughton’s last season in charge, and when Glenn Roeder dragged us down to the third tier.

As much as I would like to defend Alex Neil, it is hard to object to the supporters reaction to Saturday’s display. While performances against Liverpool and Tottenham were disappointing, it is easier to forgive when we are defeated by clearly better sides. On Saturday, however, that was not the case. Aston Villa were rubbish, but we were far, far worse. Villa couldn’t have had an easier game all season, and I guess that it is reflected by the fact that the two goal margin represented their biggest victory of the campaign. Norwich lacked quality, creativity, and most unforgivably, any resemblance of desire.

Now I am no manager and I am in no place to challenge Alex Neil’s tactical credentials but when you travel away to the league’s bottom club then, for me, the first thing that you have to ensure is that you get off to a fast start. We should have been in the faces of Villa, pressing from the first whistle. We should have tried to exploit their fragile confidence and in doing so got the home fans on their backs, perhaps snatching an early goal. However, our approach couldn’t have been more contrasting as we seemed happy to sit back and let Villa dictate the game at their own pace. We showed absolutely no urgency and it was apparent that Steven Naismith was the only player trying to bring the team up the pitch - obviously at Everton such a negative approach wouldn’t have been tolerated. This set the tone for the rest of the game.

As has been the case all season, defensive lapses were our downfall. A needless, albeit soft, foul by Mbokani led to the free-kick which resulted in Villa’s first, which was aided by poor marking by Mbokani again to compound his previous error. Villa’s second was a catalogue of errors; Mulumbu, who was awful all afternoon, was too easily beaten to the ball before Agbonlahor breezed past Klose and Rudd’s commitment to coming out of goal presented the Villa striker with the easiest possible opportunity to score his first goal of the season. Rudd either needed to stay in his goal or reach the ball before Agbonlahor - he did neither, and it represents another mistake closer to the recall of John Ruddy. City have now conceded an unforgivable 19 goals in their last 6 outings and, until such mistakes are eradicated from our game, this tally will only increase.

Having hovered just above the relegation zone for the last few weeks, Saturday’s defeat coupled by Newcastle’s victory means that, finally, we are in the bottom three. We can no longer rely on the teams around us to drop points, survival is now out of our hands and it is down to us to turn it all around.

I strongly dislike using the term ‘must-win’ but Saturday’s visit of West Ham is as close as we could possibly get to such a game. Defeat there and the fans will turn sour, the last thing that the club wants is to go into the following international break on the back of seven straight defeats. I genuinely believe that if we don’t get anything out of the game then we will be very unlikely to turn it around, especially when you consider that we have Leicester, Chelsea and Manchester City in 3 of the following 4 fixtures.

No pressure, Alex.