The ACN Match Review 25/26 – Ipswich (a) | OneFootball

In the cold light of a new day, what did you make of the game?

Cameron Huggett: First thing’s first, losing really stings.

Let’s be honest, our noisy Suffolk neighbours were clearly the better side. However, Norwich have to take some responsibility for coming away from Portman Road empty handed. For me, our failure to effectively turn the screw in matches has been a consistent thorn in our side this season. This game was no exception.

Moreover, if you take the decision to sell a key attacking player to our local rivals, it was almost a given that said player would then be instrumental in the goal that sealed our first derby defeat in one and a half decades.

Matthew McGregor: The game was par for the course of away games this season – decent in patches, better than at home, but too many mistakes, too little control, too far off being a top six team. At no point did I think we looked like a team that could take a lead and then control the game. 3-1 was a completely fair reflection of the game, and we have ourselves to blame for that more than Ipswich can take pride in a job well done.

Ben Stokes: For the first 30 minutes I was happy with how boring it had been, an uneventful draw seemed to be our best route to getting anything. Overall, it matched the pattern of pretty much every game we’ve played this season, including the ones we’ve won – start off ok, but post half-time, we continually dissolve into a shapeless mess with no ideas and no identity.

I couldn’t help but think of games in the 16-year run where we’ve been the team on the up against bereft opponents – the 4-1, the play-offs, the Lambert game. The final indignity of the day is that we’re now Ipswich.

Nathan Hill: We got what all us fans knew we were going to get. And that’s both infuriating and sad. One year in the Premier League has allowed Ipswich to build a team of Championship all-stars and they were a class above a squad largely cobbled together over two summers for two completely different head coaches.

To the credit of our players, they did at least allay fears of not understanding the assignment, and did make things quite attritional in the first half. I also felt they continued to be brave in the second half (until the third goal) – but without the necessary quality or consistent ideas of how to find an equaliser. I don’t feel let down by them but I might be being generous.

The complete lack of an offensive playbook falls squarely on Liam Manning, who was appointed to add a pragmatic, streetwise edge to what was an exciting attacking team under Johannes Hoff Thorup. The hard and fast objective was also to immediately compete for the top six as that’s what Norwich should demand of themselves “regardless of context”, as Ben Knapper put it in his end-of-season media rounds. The style of play and results have not been as advertised. It has been like Daniel Farke to Dean Smith all over again.

What positives can we take from the defeat?

CH: For some decent stretches of the first half, I thought we played quite well; limiting their attacks and maintaining some good spells of possession. The issue seems to be that we consistently drop our intensity after we concede, only to find it reignited in the dying moments of matches when our opponents have already shut up shop (although, admittedly, this game was dead and buried by that point).

MMcG: As with our other away games this season, there were patches in the first half, and the opening 10-15 minutes of the second half where we played well, especially in possession. These patches are too short, and result in too few meaningful chances, but there is clearly some potential there.

BS: Well, as fans we can go into derbies now without preserving the unbeaten run being the most important thing. Maybe it’s easy to say after the amount of time, but for me it will feel a bit more like any other game now. I can’t even find a positive in this leading to changes at the club, because I’m not sure it will.

NH: Positives? From a derby day defeat? Not keen on entertaining those. That’s what that lot have done for 16 years – worshipping players for scoring goals in derbies they didn’t win.

Personally, for as long as the streak remained, I wasn’t sure how I’d cope with it ending. After 16 years of growing and maturing as a person since high school (over half of my life), it turns out I can brush off losing a football match much more easily now than in 2009. Or maybe it’s partially down to my general numbness towards this current version of Norwich City – so I’m not sure if it’s truly a positive.

Any stand-out players?

CH: Whilst he did not get anywhere near the level of service he needs to be truly effective, Josh Sargant’s work rate cannot be faulted. With every opposition back-pass, he was battling to put pressure on their keeper. This effort saw him win the ball just outside of the box, but he couldn’t quite find a teammate by squeezing the ball beneath Alex Palmer’s arm.

MMcG: Pelle Mattsson might be a player. As he settles in, he seems to be developing into the Kenny replacement we now very much need.

BS: It was good to see Schwartau score. I’ve not been overly convinced by him in the past but this season he has looked to be one of the few who plays like he cares, when he’s been given the chance. Vladan also stood out for flapping at things and looking like the occasion had got to him.

NH: No. Pelle Mattsson is looking somewhat close to being a true number 6 in midfield which we haven’t had since Ollie Skipp. Probably should’ve taken a yellow before Philogene shielded and spun away from him. That’s not using hindsight, I shouted that at my TV as it happened. Jose Cordoba wasn’t caught out by the balls to George Hirst in the channel. Ante Crnac wasn’t bullied and linked play reasonably well.

Again though, I’m acknowledging the potential scapegoats for not being scapegoats and you can’t “wasn’t” and “didn’t” your way to a win in a derby. No one in a yellow shirt was above a 6. Many were a 5, if that. None were unfortunate to be on the losing side. They were the better side all over the pitch, and that’s hard to type.

Has the result impacted your opinion on Norwich’s prospects for the rest of the season and beyond?

CH: As much as I don’t want to be overly-hyperbolic, yesterday’s result feels like another sign that the club is not currently heading in the right direction. Before the season started, it felt like we had got everything right, but nothing seems to have clicked. Is it recoverable? Maybe. But this result feels like a significant blow to supporters’ patience.

MMcG: My pre-season prediction of Norwich finishing in 10th now feels wildly optimistic, but this defeat is confirmation of what we already knew rather than new data that should cause new alarm. We knew that this is a club in some real danger, the only question is whether those in charge will do something about it other than hope for the best.

BS: I’d say not at all to be honest as I’d already given up before Sunday. Basically, we’re in big trouble. The way the team is being coached has thrown up red flags all season long, but how much trust is there in the current Sporting Director to be able to identify a capable replacement? And as for the squad he’s helped to assemble, they play like a team of strangers. £20 million+ of recruitments sat on the bench at Stoke was damning.

Someone has got to get a tune out of these players or else a relegation scrap is all I can see.

NH: No. I think there was more than enough evidence before this weekend to show that we are absolutely miles away from where the higher-ups thought we’d be, and expected us to be. We haven’t been unlucky to lose all our home games and we’ve been mightily fortunate to avoid defeat on the road until now.

Even if Knapper wields the axe during this international break, I’m not sure who he can realistically attract who could completely haul us out of this massive hole he’s dug.

From moving the goalposts on Thorup, to seemingly auditioning Jack Wilshere to then suddenly deem him not experienced enough, to recruiting similar players for vastly different coaches, to directly helping a geographical and competitive rival – what a mess. And it now looks a mess on the pitch.

The best we can hope for is someone to steady the ship and eventually make going to Carrow Road fun again. That’s the least those being unceremoniously booted out of certain blocks of the River End deserve anyway, but also every single one of us who pay top Championship dollar for a cheap, faulty and boring Championship product.

16 years unbeaten is an incredible achievement, what was your personal highlight from our run of derby dominance?

CH: Timm Klose’s 2018 last minute equaliser will always have a special place in my heart. I watched that derby in the University of Lincoln’s student union with an Ipswich supporting friend. To see their celebrations cut short, and for them to wordlessly stand up and leave the minute the ball hit the back of the Barclay End net was a particularly sweet moment. (Suffice to say, they messaged me immediately on the final whistle yesterday)

MMcG: Watching the 4-1 win in a bar in Washington D.C. with one Ipswich fan, no other Norwich fans, and about 40 bemused Americans waiting for the American football game to come on. The Ipswich fan left after our third goal went in, which is par for the course for their fair-weather fans over the course of this run.

BS: Sitting in the City Stand, watching the 1-5 being beamed back to a big screen on the pitch. Such a surreal way to watch something that we could barely believe was happening. I’ve been to plenty of games with worse atmospheres than the one that night, and that was when the stadium was full and had, you know, players in it too. And Chris Goreham’s guttural: “FIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE, ONE, AT PORTMAN ROAD” is seared into all our brains.

NH: Our most recent win at Portman Road – the one where James Maddison scored – was on my birthday (and yes, I was there). Pretty hard to top that. Pretty sure that day also gave us the iconic video of Michael Bailey interviewing some lads in the away pub before the game – IYKYK…