Norwich City secure important victory but doubts remain

Norwich City recorded their third league win of the season on Saturday afternoon as they ran out 3-2 winners over Cardiff City at Carrow Road. Goals from Cameron Jerome, Russell Martin and second-half substitute Josh Murphy gave Alex Neil’s side the victory in a game which, despite the five goals, was hugely lacking in quality. On the back of a dismal 3-0 defeat at Birmingham and a disappointing conclusion to the transfer window last week, three points was a must for Norwich and, thankfully, that’s what we got - despite the generally lacklustre display.

There are few things in the world more difficult than predicting an Alex Neil starting eleven and his selection for Cardiff’s visit was once again met with surprise. To my disappointment, the team news revealed that the experiment of Russell Martin at centre-back is to continue into a third season as he replaced Ryan Bennett, whilst Steven Naismith and Sergi Canos, both starters two weeks ago, found themselves omitted from the squad completely. In recent weeks Naismith has been seemingly undroppable - with some fans accusing Neil of treating the Scot too favourabl - so for him to not even make the bench, with no documented injury, was a strange decision and one that just proves that it is almost impossible to second guess the City boss. Similarly, Canos impressed Neil enough to earn himself a start at St Andrews yet, despite not doing much wrong during the 3-0 defeat, found himself watching from the stands. The only reasonable explanation I can come up with is that with 6 games in 18 days squad rotation is inevitable but, nonetheless, to see Canos not even make the bench was yet another surprise to add to Alex Neil’s long list of them.

On a positive note, the return of Cameron Jerome, Ivo Pinto and Graham Dorrans meant that, despite a few surprising omissions, City’s starting eleven had a fairly positive outlook. Any hope that this would result in a flowing Norwich performance was soon to be proved misplaced, however, as a painstakingly dull first-half was rudely interrupted by Cameron Jerome’s 16th minute opener. Following a dangerous Jacob Murphy delivery from the left, Jerome fluffed his first attempt before converting from a tight angle. It was somewhat typical of the striker to miss the far easier of the two chances but the eventual goal marked his third of the season - already equaling last seasons tally - and for this he must receive some credit. At this stage, the Carrow Road crowd would have expected the Canaries to open their wings and assert their dominance over a poor Cardiff side, but, unfortunately, this wasn’t to be. Nonetheless, we went into the break a goal to the good and this lead was soon doubled just before the hour mark as Russell Martin - justifying his selection - bundled home a Jacob Murphy corner, giving the 21-year-old his second assist of the afternoon.

We were now in a comfortable position and would go on to see the game out and add another goal or two in the process, right? Wishful thinking.

City have a horrible habit of always letting teams back into games that are all but won and Saturday was no different (we did it twice!), as Cardiff exposed our defensive frailty to pull a goal back in the 87th minute. Ivo Pinto, Timm Klose and Cameron Jerome were all unable to deal with a Peter Whittingham cross which eventually fell to ex-City man Anthony Pilkington, leaving the forward to tap home from within the six-yard box. To describe it as a scrappy goal would be an understatement and it is one that will undoubtedly have left Alex Neil fuming. If we are serious about promotion then we will need to stop conceding such sloppy goals, that is for sure.

The Carrow Road faithful were now bracing themselves for a needlessly nerve-wracking finale but, whilst a Cardiff equaliser seemed inevitable, substitute Josh Murphy continued his brother’s good work by scoring City’s third on the 90-minute mark. A trademark Jonny Howson run gave Murphy the ball with space on the left before he cut inside and curled the ball delightfully into the far corner of Ben Wilson’s goal. Whilst twin Jacob has made an impressive start to the season, there has been some concern about the form of Josh and as a result it was a relief to see him on the score-sheet - he is very much a confidence player and hopefully this will give him the belief to put in the performances that we know he is capable of in the coming weeks.

Despite being 3-1 up in the 90th minute there was, of course, still time for Norwich to offer Cardiff a glimmer of hope as Pilkington poked him his second of the afternoon with just seconds remaining. It was yet more concerning defending from Norwich, as an inability to deal with a Cardiff corner saw Pilkington escape from his marker, Alex Tettey, to convert. Luckily the goal was too late for it to give Cardiff a serious chance of earning a point but it put a slight damper on what was a hugely important victory.

Despite the negative tone of this piece, we needed to win and we did - despite not being at our best. Whilst we have been dwindling in second gear during the opening part of the season, we somehow find ourselves in fifth and so to be too negative would be grossly unfair. Alex Pritchard looked promising on his return as a substitute and with him, along with a few others including Nelson Oliveira, set to come back into the fold things should slowly continue to get better. With 5 games still to play before September is out, now would be the perfect time for City to build some momentum and the visit of lowly Wigan on Tuesday night should be seen as a great opportunity to help gather such momentum.