Ruddy's wasn't the only error in the game, but those by keepers always stand out. I thought Hooper could have been brought on much earlier, and perhaps Andreu as well to really go for it. Derby were hardly a huge threat. It reminded me a bit of the Birmingham game that way. Two points lost at home, certainly, but it's not all down to Ruddy. Disappointing, but not a disaster.
There were many on here yesterday saying a draw would be a fine result in the scheme of things (Obviously after how the match played out it's harder to think like that) and I agree. It's not the end of our season. We had the hardest game yesterday so It's almost to be expected that the teams above would pull that little gap on us.
Watching the FLS now and Ruddy was in good company! Some really shocking goal keeping, particularly the Brentford-Cardiff match!
That was the only attack on goal I saw all game due to the really poor stream - I thought it was a dead cert for the back of the net. Cracking save it has to be said.
Now that I've calmed down after we only managed a draw yesterday, I can comment on the game. The build up to Jerome's goal was one of the best passing moves I've seen in ages and I had hopes that we'd go on and score more. The fact that we didn't was due to bad luck/good goalkeeping and a couple of chances missed. The Derby goal was definitely a foul on Ruddy, but it was so slight, the match officials would have had difficulty spotting it. Whittaker's volley hit Grant's body - he didn't even see it and then his save from Bassong's header was first class, as was his save from Hooper's shot late on. Jerome's miss was only inches over the bar as well and when the ball fell to Johnson 6 yards out, he skied it over the bar. As AN said after the match - we deserved to win and limited Derby to very few chances. Overall, I was very pleased with our performance yesterday, though as others have said, I would have liked to see Hooper come on earlier and perhaps give Redmond 10 to 15 minutes at least. Should we end up in a play-off slot as opposed to top 2, I'm confident we'd at least get to Wembley!!!!
Well spotted Rob. Updated form table and yes, we have been replaced by Watford at the top, but they have some tough games coming up!!!
Play like that in every one of the next nine games and we'll win at least eight of them and the league no doubt in my mind. Now there's the trick...
Sorry JR, I still think that's not quite right as Watford drew with Wolves, so your previous table was right it just had Watford's results in slightly the wrong order!
bloody Internet went off for the last twenty five minutes, had to call my mum in the UK to get the full time. She didn't deserve to hear my odd expletive, big bunch of flowers this morning may help. Surely gutted about it still but we're only three points off and theres a lot more football to play. Criticism of Ruddy is very unfair, should we come to the play-off final, and penalties, it could all be down to him to take us back to the prem, I trust him to do that. OTBC!
Comment from AN - “Sometimes in football you don’t get what you deserved and today in our case that sums it up. I felt in the first half we were totally on top and got the goal, then for the next 15 minutes it was a wee bit scrappy but second half we were dominant without being great and then the last 15 minutes we created two or three really great opportunities we should have scored. “If we perform like that between now and the end of the season in the big games then given our dominance you would certainly expect to win more games than you lose.” Puts it all in perspective really!!!
He certainly always dissects our games perfectly in his interviews afterwards and never tries to cover things up or overstate how we played. That is exactly how the game panned out. I was one who also called for Hooper to be introduced earlier but I can understand why he left it as long as he did because despite the mistake for the goal, the game was being controlled by us. Why change it while we were still well on top? Bringing him on for the final 15 minutes, in hindsight, was totally fair. The manager made no mistakes yesterday as far as I can tell. We dominated the game, created chances and stopped them playing. It was just a tale of two goalkeepers - one who had a stormer and the other who made an error - that is what cost us a very disciplined victory. These things happen and you have to just take it on the chin and hope you get a similar lucky break in your next fixture.
And having now seen a replay of the Derby goal I think it was the right call from the referee. If it was a foul it was minimal contact - I'm not convinced he pulled his hand away. I'm one who thinks goalkeepers are over protected these days and they seem to go off like car alarms whenever anyone so much as looks at them in the area. Ruddy should be stronger than that. Having said that, I guarantee the goal would have been chalked off had one of our players done it!
I think that's fair enough, Supers, but I felt we were controlling the game without achieving much penetration. Hooper would have given Wes more options.
Marginal decision though. As I say, I'd have brought him on a tad earlier too, but only five minutes maybe, give him 20 minutes instead of 15. It certainly didn't affect the match result to any degree that it warrants too much discussion whereas Ruddy's error does. We controlled the midfield so to take someone out earlier was slightly risky given we weren't chasing the game and were still creating chances. Hooper played really well when he came on but really should have scored.
Surprised no one has said anything about how well Hoolahan played yesterday. He was by far Norwich's best offensive player. Everything good going forward went through him. Dorrans is beginning to impress, but I thought he was a bit slow to release or shoot which was frustrating. I still wish we had Grabban to play as the pace and movement really compliments those around him when he is playing well.
