3 Games, 3 BIG Performances Required

By: David | January 19th, 2009

Barnsley and Saints at home, Doncaster away. These next three games are of extreme importance for our survival this season. Especially with Southampton and Doncaster sitting in the relegation zone, we’re in direct competition to avoid the drop into the 3rd teir of English football.

Here’s how I see it. Having drawn o-o at Barnsley earlier in the season, where David Marshall saved a 13th minute penalty and made a few impotant saves to win us a point, and beaten Southampton 2-0 and Doncaster 2-1, we should have the upper hand. However, following Glenn Roeder’s man management skills our entire squads’ self confidence and self belief is at an all time low. With the Rodent having been shown the door after Wednesday nights dire 1-0 reverse against bottom of the league, not won in 18 games, Charlton, we have to be on the up and up.

Putting aside potential replacement managers for the time being, the appointment of City legend and all round good scotch egg Bryan Gunn is a good move by the board. He made 477 appearances as City goalkeeper, the vast majority being in the top flight, he’s been a coach, a liason officer and is currently the head of player recruitment. As he spoke to the press yeasterday and indicated that tears had been shed at the state of the club, it’s obvious his love of all things Norwich City runs deep. He knows this club. He knows the players and has their respect I’d venture, either having played with them, coached them or helped sign them in the first place. So a good performance from the lads for Gunny is a given and with plenty of vocal support a full house at Carrow Road brings I’d imagine a win today over an overperforming Barnsley team who we’ve beaten six times in the last eight meetings, drawing the other two.

We then have a ten day break of games. time to appoint a new manager and build the squad’s confidence further. Hopefully…

Tuesday 27 Jan evening game at home to Southampton, a new managerial appointment and a win is essential as this and the Doncaster game are ‘6 pointers’. Speculation keeps linking Saints with a permanent move for our little Italian loanee Arturo Lupoli and if they pull it off I’d bank on him scoring against us. La Viola aren’t in any dire need for finances following the sale of Pazzini and rumoured other sales so hopefully they’ll do us a favour and keep him here. In which case we’ll definitely win. Saints are even more goal shy than us, with a similarly poor defence. I see our back four starting to return to form with the re-aquisition of Jonathan Grounds and having Jamie Cureton back from his successful goal scoring and starting role at Barnsley (why would you Glenn???) we’ll have the upper hand. Southampton are always a banana skin with Norwich, games seem to ding dong back and forth and the results are never clear cut, so I’ll err on the side of caution and predict a draw.

Then oop North to Donny. They have the worst attack in the league, scoring just 17 goals, in all four English leagues no one has a worse record in front of goal with WBA and Hereford Utd being equally inept. Under the Roeder regime you would bank on Doncaster filling their boots and hitting the goal trail big time as every other team on a bad run has against us this season. No longer I feel, and this game should see a win for the Canaries if we can put away our chances.

If we get the performances we should then 7 points from these three games is a very realistic target, even with current form. And it’ll have to be, as we then travel to top of the league Wolverhampton where we’ve hardly ever performed well. They’ll be up for revenge after our 5-2 win here this season and we’ll have to be on our mettle.

On the Ball City!