Never Mind The Qualiy - What's the Score? 28th DECEMBER 2010

‘NEVER MIND THE QUALITY....WHAT’S THE SCORE?’

It goes without saying that football is all about results. We hear it time and again from every direction as the latest beleaguered manager is placed under the media microscope. ‘X has three games to save his job,’ we are told, or ‘Y faces a must-win game’. Rarely, if ever, do we read that a manager faces the sack if his team don’t produce a fluent passing performance which is pleasing on the eye. I can’t remember the last time I heard of a manager avoiding the sack because his team played well despite losing consistently.

And yet there has been a chorus of opinion following today’s win against Sheffield United that we were lucky to get away with a win. Had John Ruddy not made a last-ditch save just before Wes’s hat-trick we would have drawn. Had the ref not been a little keen to point to the spot when Holty hit the deck for the first penalty we wouldn’t have taken the points. All of which might be absolutely right but hang on a minute! Remember when we battered Hull only to lose? What about the Portsmouth game? Does anybody recall the game at Forest when we played the team with one of the best home records in the country off the park, only to draw? When the Horse was sent off at Reading for pulling out of a challenge we were 3-1 up and cruising in a game from which we eventually took only a point.

Ask any player or manager and they’ll tell you that generally these things even themselves out over the course of a year. So what we should do is just have a look at the league table and observe that as the season nears its mid-point we aren’t doing too badly. There is no real need or purpose in bemoaning a lacklustre performance when all we need do is celebrate the result.

This does not mean that I don’t care how my team plays. Indeed having spent the time before our game today watching Aidy Hoofroyd’s Coventry show that the difference between the league leaders QPR and the Sky Blues might be only six league positions but is, in fact, mega light years in terms of quality of football, I am firmly of the opinion that our one time Youth Team manager must never again be allowed near any of our players at any level. What I mean is that provided we are trying to play decent football (‘in the Norwich way’) we should regard points gained from a below par performance in just the same way as those picked up from a blinder.

Throw into the mix the absence of some key players (Surman, Barnett, Ward, Drury, Lansbury) and today’s win takes on a different complexion. Paul Lambert and Ian Culverhouse have reintroduced several key qualities at Carrow Road which have been missing for some years and one of these is a vitally important depth of squad. No longer does the absence of one, two or even three players spell disaster. Look at the way Michael Nelson has returned to the side with purpose. Who’d have thought six or seven weeks ago that David Fox would be where he was today at the heart of our midfield? At the same time we now have flexibility during the game. Hence today we saw the sideline staff instigate not one but two rearrangements of system in an attempt to make things happen. This is absolutely vital in a seriously competitive side and for me is perhaps the single most impressive aspect of the Lambert regime. One of my saddest memories of our relegation slump is the sight of a helpless (clueless?) Gunny standing on the sideline, arms folded, as we slumped to a home defeat against an awful Sheffield Wednesday side. It is still possible, as we have seen this season, for us to suffer home defeats but it will never be as a result of inaction from the sidelines.

We now look ahead to the New Year with the prospect of a tilt at back-to-back promotions looking realistic. Whatever Paul Lambert does or does not do in the transfer window he has my support. And if he decides to start a game with Wesley on the bench then who am I or anyone else to question his planning?

And if we get a result as we push on into the second half of the season, remember.....NEVER MIND THE QUALITY...WHAT’S THE SCORE?