Now down to 5th and into freefall. 10 points off the league leaders & 7 points away from an automatic promotion place. No points from the last 3 games, a goal difference of -3 and it seems like an age ago (15th of October) that we last got any points. The club doesn’t look like it’s going to take decisive action any time in the near future and a return to the promised land of the PL seems a long way away. This doesn’t appear to be a blip and at the moment mid-table mediocrity doesn’t seem like it’s such a bad place to be. I think we’re doing too well against the lower teams to keep clear of relegation, but at the moment playing in league 1 next season seems just as likely as playing in the PL..
6/8 Blackburn 1 (23rd) Norwich 4
13/8 Norwich 0 Sheffield Wed 0 (10th)
16/8 Norwich 1 Bristol City 0 (9th)
21/8 Ipswich 1 (15th) Norwich 1
27/8 Birmingham 3 (7th) Norwich 0
10/9 Norwich 3 Cardiff 2 (21st)
13/9 Norwich 2 Wigan 1 (22nd)
17/9 Nottingham Forrest 1 (20th) Norwich 2
24/9 Norwich 3 Burton Albion 1 (18th)
28/9 Newcastle 4 (1st) Norwich 3
1/10 Wolves 1 (19th) Norwich 2
15/10 Norwich 3 Rotherham 1 (24th)
18/10 Fulham 2 (8th) Norwich 2
22/10 Norwich 0 Preston 1 (11th)
29/10 Brighton 5 (2nd) Norwich 0
05/11 Norwich 2 Leeds 3 (6th)
The highest placed team we’ve beat is Bristol in 9th. The lowest placed team we've lost to is Preston in 11th.
We’ve played 8 home games, winning 5, drawing 1 & losing 2, and 8 away games, winning 3, drawing 2 & losing 3.
Of the 16 games we’ve played, 7 have been against the bottom 7 teams and we’ve beat them all. Of the 9 teams we’ve played from 17th up we’ve beaten 1 (Bristol in 9th), drew with 3 and lost to 5.
We’ve played 3 teams in, the top 6 and lost to all of them 2 at home and 1 away. Our results and performance in the potential 6 pointers has been woeful.
At the start of the season we played dis-proportionally more of the weaker teams and consequently our position in the league gave of our supporters, the general footballing public and the board a false impression of our potential to get promoted. Anyone that looked at our performances rather than our position in the league, should have been able to see things more clearly. Unfortunately an over reliance on our league position rather than looking deeper has meant many people have been deluding themselves. Surely now even AN’s greatest supporters should be able to read ‘the writing on the wall’, although I doubt the board will do anything about it until it’s too late.
It still looks like we’re going to beat most teams we play in the lower half of the table, especially at home, with the occasional draw away from home, whilst against teams in the top half it looks like mainly loses or draws, with the occasional win at home. This trend hasn’t really change since I started this pointless analysis
The next 3 Championship games are against QPR (17th / away) Derby (16th / away) and Brentford (12th / home). All winnable games if our players play at anywhere near their full potential, 6 points are essential to even pretend we are promotion candidates.