Problems continue to mount at Norwich City following fourth straight league defeat

Norwich City suffered their fourth straight defeat on Saturday afternoon as they were beaten 2-1 by QPR at Loftus Road. For many Norwich fans, Alex Neil should have been sacked in the aftermath of our previous defeat against Leeds and, on the back of yet another lacklustre display, the opposition to the City boss is beginning to reach an insurmountable level.

Following the Leeds defeat, Neil was roundly criticised for not making enough changes. This time around, he did make changes - the only problem being that some of said changes were, quite frankly, bizarre. Having scored in the aforementioned Leeds game, and also having scored on international duty last weekend, if Neil was going to drop Cameron Jerome then the obvious replacement was Kyle Lafferty. If he wasn’t willing to give Lafferty a start then, for me, he should have just persisted with Jerome - after all, he has been one of our better performers this season. Nonetheless, in typical Neil fashion, he proceeded to surprise us all by giving Nelson Oliveira (who has hardly set the league alight in his cameo appearances) his first Championship start. Another surprising inclusion was Sebastien Bassong, who was brought in from the cold to replace Timm Klose. Now, I will be the first to admit that Klose has been a huge disappointment this season but when he is dropped whilst Ryan Bennett is retained, something is evidently not quite right. Other changes came in the form of John Ruddy in for Michael McGovern (about time), Alex Tettey in for Louis Thomson, Steven Naismith in for Wes Hoolahan and Jacob Murphy in for Alex Pritchard. I had my doubts, but I was willing to give it a try - at the very least, Neil had been brave.

What Neil cannot legislate for is what happened in the opening minute, as yet more calamitous defending forced Martin Olsson to, quite literally, save the ball off the line resulting in a first minute penalty and a red card. A perfect encapsulation of our current state of affairs: I could only laugh. When QPR’s Tjaronn Chery missed the following spot-kick it felt like nothing more than delaying the inevitable - if an 11 man Norwich City can be as tame and beatable as we have been in recent weeks, then a 10 man Norwich City side doesn’t bear thinking about.

It felt like it would only be a matter of time before QPR took the lead and this proved to be the case in the 21st minute as, shock horror, Norwich conceded from a set-piece. It was just so embarrassingly easy - Bassong was far too easily beaten in the air by Polter, whilst the combination of Alex Tettey and Robbie Brady failed to prevent Conor Washington from tapping home inside the 6-yard-box. Eleven men or ten men, there is absolutely no excuse for conceding such a soft goal. If we had been switched on and dealt with it properly then, regardless of us being a man down, QPR would not have scored. I feel like I am repeating the same thing every week: we are simply not learning.

Within six minutes The R’s had doubled their lead and, whilst Chery should deserve credit for his defence-splitting pass, it was, yet again, all far too easy. In the space of little more than 5 seconds, and just one pass, the ball had gone from being on the half-way line to being in the back of John Ruddy’s net. That is unforgivable.

The last half-an-hour saw City at last show some fight, and Steven Naismith’s neat header from a Jacob Murphy cross offered us a glimmer of hope but, in truth, anything other than a defeat would have been grossly undeserved.

The issues at the football club could not be illustrated more perfectly than by the fact that the back five that started at Loftus Road - John Ruddy, Russell Martin, Sebastien Bassong, Ryan Bennett and Martin Olsson - are exactly the same back five that started during our 5-1 defeat at Liverpool almost three years ago today. At least three of them, arguably four, should have left City long ago and yet, here we are, three years on and they are back to being our first-choice. I think it just perfectly reflects the stagnant nature of the club at this present time - there is no progression, no evolution, no forward-thinking. And there hasn’t been for some time.

There are huge, huge problems at this football club and with each passing weak they are getting larger and larger. Next week sees us travel to an improving Derby side and I don’t think you could find one City fan who is expecting anything other than a defeat. Neil has to go, but, even if he does, I don’t have much cause for optimism going forward.