There's only one City - That's Norwich!

What a way to end the season! These last 8 days as a Norwich City supporter have simply been incredible. From the victory of our last home match of the season, to our spectacular youth team winning the FA Cup to unexpectedly winning our final match of the season and being the only other team bar Manchester United to beat Manchester City at the Etihad. Just magical.

I love Manchester City as a club and I was extremely excited to finally get the chance to visit the Etihad stadium. I was not disappointed. It is a superb stadium and I also spent a lot of time in the club shop getting silly amounts of memorabilia. The fans themselves were great, albeit very quiet, but understandably so after the turbulence of the last couple of weeks for them what with the departure of Mancini and losing the FA Cup. However, they were very gracious, accepted the loss and clapped away all us supporters on the coaches which was a real change from getting various nasty gestures which unfortunately seems to be the done thing at so many places.

Sunday just went to show exactly what freedom from pressure and confidence can do. It also proved my theory that we play better against ‘better bigger’ clubs, take Arsenal, Man United and now this as evidence. There is also an incredible statistic to back this up. Based on games against top half teams, we would have finished 7th, 5 points ahead of Liverpool in 8^th! I think it is safe to say it is clear where we need to work on next season. We were safe and staying in the Premier League so the guys could have been in holiday mode and gone into this match with a laid back and don’t care attitude but they didn’t, far from it. On the back of the unbelievable 4-0 thrashing of West Brom the team went into this match with attack attack attack from the very get go, with an incredible 13 shots, 8 of these on target. We honestly could have scored at least 6 goals in total and came painfully close from the Ryan Bennett header cleared off the line to the Tettey shot only a couple of inches wide. The boys were on fire!

It is interesting to note that the only times Man City came back was shortly after we had scored. However, when they attack they do it in style and I feared every time one of their forwards had the ball as we have all seen what magic they can produce. During those last 20 minutes we had to defend hard and the guys showed exactly what we are best at by stopping them getting anywhere close to an equaliser. Jack Rodwell came out with a bang and these were his first two goals since his move from Everton. He seems to be a great young player with pace, a pace far too quick for Whittaker, who I am sure will be playing much more next season.

The most special moment of the match, and for me the year, without a doubt came from Mr. Jonny I'm casually gonna run through 6 Man City players and smash the ball in Howson with his £4 million goal. I really am pleased for him. He is proving his doubters (of which there seem to be a very large number!) exactly why he deserves to be here and I really hope he remains in the starting line up next season. When he is allowed to push forward he really can create fantastic chances by running the ball down the field wiggling through defenders then either sending a ball into the area or as we have seen recently take a powerful shot.

I said last week how important I think it was, psychologically, for Ruddy to come back and this was further proved this Sunday. He really gets both the crowd and the players going and, like Bassong, he is a big unit in the team. I was worried when I heard the team news that we were without Bassong and still no Turner, and I really feared the day when we had to play without both of them. Safe to say I was a little panicky, especially against a team of such quality like Man City as I really did not want to lose by a massive margin, but the team proved that we can cope without Turner and Bassong, just about, but I will most certainly be more relaxed when they return next season.

Grant Holt. Oh Grant Holt. For a while I thought his time has come to leave and for a large number of matches he has had a bad attitude and has not been the captain that we all remember and love. However, during these last couple of matches he seems to have had a personality transplant and he has pushed himself hard with results, scoring in both matches against West Brom and Man City. It was also interesting to see that he looked a little emotional after Sunday when he came to thank all the travelling supporters. Regardless of whether he is here or not next year I think the last two matches have been too little too late and he does not deserve to be captain anymore. Its Russell Martin all the way for me from now.

There seem to be a large number of people from all around that just cannot accept that Norwich played well and deserved to win. I have heard various things in the pub from, ‘oh well Man City had nothing to play for’ to ‘oh come on they clearly just let Howson run through and didn’t try’. It’s hilarious really. That was the final match of the season and what club in their right mind would want to lose their last home match, knowing that they then have to come out and face all the supporters doing their lap of honour.

 

Emily Ward