
AlongComeNorwich
·19 October 2025
The ACN Match Review 25/26 – Bristol City (h)

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Yahoo sportsAlongComeNorwich
·19 October 2025
How did we play?
Like the away team. Which is how we’ve looked in all our home games. Allowing the opposition to play the game on their terms. While losing six home games out of six to start a season is unforgivable in any context, the fact that not one of those six visiting teams has been made to work for all three points (or cup progress) is even more damning. We pay top Championship dollar to watch a poorly-constructed and poorly-coached team who haven’t even been close to winning any of these six home games.
We look laboured, lifeless, devoid of ideas, devoid of personality, and devoid of Championship-ready talent – given that the best striker in the league has been reduced to fighting for his own scraps. Bristol City fans, who were quick to tell us about Liam Manning’s horseshoe football, started sarcastically cheering our predictable patterns and strictly scheduled substitutions.
What was the best bit of the game?
We upped the intensity for a couple of minutes – a couple of players made intelligent movements into spaces that genuinely stretched the Bristol City back line, which led to a soft side-footed shot from Emi Marcondes straight down the middle of the goal. The crowd, perhaps desperate for some excitement, roared with approval, but it was never likely to amount to anything more. Quality chance creation almost feels accidental under Manning.
What was the worst bit of the game?
The other 88 minutes plus stoppage time, where once again Norwich City showed a total inability to pass a football to one another. No one is strong enough to hold a man off, no one is quick enough to burst away from someone, no one makes an angle for their teammate, no one steps up and takes ownership, no one wants to take a risk.
The lack of identity and chemistry is also the by-product of recruiting players by profile, not as jigsaw pieces for how a coach wants to play. The majority of these signings would’ve been made for Johannes Hoff Thorup too – his team would bully this one and steal its lunch money by the way. Connor Southwell of The Pink Un recently described the approach as like running a “talent factory” and that firmly hits the nail on the head. They want to develop saleable assets first, a cohesive team second – or so it feels.
Except none of them are going to improve here, none are being put into positions to succeed under Liam Manning. There’s a huge reliance on the 2024 signings to progress and they’ve, in fact, regressed. The 2025 recruits may be decent technical players but don’t currently look fit for purpose in a ruthless and relentless league such as this.
If anything summed up the culture of finger-pointing, and lack of responsibility-taking, around the whole club at the moment, it was that moment in the first half where our goalkeeper laid into the ball boy instead of grabbing another ball that couldn’t have been more than two or three steps away. Everything stinks.
What was the atmosphere like?
The simmering toxicity didn’t boil over until the 73rd minute but no one was enjoying themselves at any point. The mess unfolding on the pitch is only half of it, of course. This is no longer a club that loves its fans back for all the love, energy, and dedication they pour into it. Now, your worth to them is purely monetary. That has been spelt out loud and clear by the shirts and shackets now running the show, who want us all to be staunch cheerleaders and big-spenders if we’re to continue being part of the journey – which is heading nowhere fast under their stewardship.
The stands are angry and apathetic because the boardroom is complacent and overly-clinical with how it’s treating the task of building a winning football team, and cold and contemptuous with how it’s treating the supporters. My Matchday Experience™ would be greatly improved if my team starts to resemble Norwich City once again, and maybe wins the occasional game. I never go home and think “I wish there were more places I could buy an overpriced hotdog from”. Someone, from somewhere, has to give us a reason to care again. And that reason isn’t hotdogs.
One day, one of them might author a LinkedIn post about “what my time at Norwich taught me about communication” but that would require a lot of self-reflection, honesty and accountability to write.
Hero of the match
No heroes to be seen on the pitch, except the chap who won a grand taking part in the half-time entertainment.
Hero of the week, however, is the gentleman who dropped the mic and walked out of the supporters’ meeting on Wednesday, and everyone else who articulately and emotively made their feelings known about being evicted from their Carrow Road homes which – for them – hold so many memories and also being viewed as an expendable group in a money-grabbing mission.
Summary in five words
I don’t recognise my club.
Live