Perhaps it's selective memory on my part, but I always associate the Christmas period with a bad set of results for Norwich. Am I right statistically? For example, even in the season when we came third in the Prem, I seem to remember we were well ahead before Christmas, but poor results over the festive season dragged us back down to the rest, including a home defeat against Ipswich. This Christmas we start by facing an Arsenal team who have recovered fantastically well from an awful start to the season and now sit in the top four, with four consecutive wins under their belt. Our side will be weakened by injuries and Covid, but so will theirs, so I'm hopeful for at least a draw. COYY!
The team news isn't encouraging: Mathias Normann: “Unfortunately, Mathias was hoping to get back, but he’s had a setback and has had surgery now to release the abductors and help his pelvic injury, so he’s going to be out for the foreseeable future.” Milot Rashica: “Milot, these games will come too soon for him, but we’re hopeful that he’ll be back for the Leicester game.” Ozan Kabak: “He’s available for selection. He was one of those players who shouldn’t have been playing against Aston Villa. He had suffered from glandular fever, had come back from that, was playing his first full game against Manchester United for a while and then was back out there against Villa and broke down before half-time. He’s back to fitness but to ask him to play two games in three days is going to be too much.” Grant Hanley: “I think he went to see the specialist yesterday, he doesn’t need any surgery, which is really good. But certainly for the next couple of weeks he won’t be available.” Andrew Omobamidele: “Andrew, unfortunately, will probably be out for another 10 games with the back stress injury.” Josh Sargent and Christos Tzolis: “We’ve got some players who had illness who are back on the training ground, Billy Gilmour being one of them as well, who was the player who was playing with the high temperature against Vila. There’s a lot of players who have had illness and symptoms but have actually tested negative (for Covid-19). So there’s been a bit of a softly, softly approach during training, just to make sure we get them back to their full recovery and are ready for the game on Sunday.” Pierre Lees-Melou and Lukas Rupp: “Lees-Melou is back training now after illness. Ruppy’s had illness but also an injury, so we’ll be having a look at him today to see how he comes through.” https://www.edp24.co.uk/sport/norwich-city/ncfc-boss-blasts-festive-lunacy-amid-injury-news-8585940
Not good news at all, especially about Normann I think him staying fit has the ability to help decide our season. “Foreseeable future” doesn’t sound good, if that means 10-15 games the season will already be over points wise. Now I love Normann, but for our survival this year we must surely consider terminating the loan to give ourselves the ability to get another loan in that could help us. Hopefully then we could sign Normann at the end of the season having secured PL status for another year.
Looks grim, doesn't it? Regarding Normann, I don't want to throw stones, but this seems like a long-term injury, not something he picked up with us, so why wasn't it detected at the medical before he joined us?
Everton game has now been postponed, due to Covid and injuries. Another case of the big boys, but not little old Norwich
Normann is a loss, but it's being down to 2 CBs, one of whom can only play one of the next two games, that worries me. Do we move Sørensen back to CB and play Byram at DM again? It's all a bit of a mess so the big clubs can prosper.
I think it was detected, I think I remember it being mentioned when he signed and went straight on international duty to get some fitness. Sounds like we have been playing him through necessity and further aggravating the injury rather than preferably resting him if we had an adequate replacement. Again from DS press conference it sounds like they have been trying to speed up the process of getting him back for the Arsenal game and he has suffered a set back as a result and had to undergo surgery.
As for cancelling the loan: "On the Normann surgery, our understanding is that there would be no consideration of his loan ending in January and that #NCFC are hoping he may be back in late January - but they can't say for sure."
So who are we likely to have available? GK: Krul, Gunn, McGovern RB: Aarons, Byram, Mumba, LB: Giannoulis, Williams CB: Gibson, Kabak DM Sørensen, (Byram), (Gilmour) CM: Rupp, Gilmour, Lees-Melou, McLean WR: Cantwell, Dowell, (Sargent) WL: Tzolis, Placheta S: Pukki, Idah, Sargent That would be 20, though 3 are keepers and there is some doubt about Rupp. If Kabak plays against Arsenal, he's unlikely to play against Palace, according to DS. The other vulnerable position is DM, as Sørensen is also the backup at CB.
We shouldn't have to do this. There will be 200,000 cases a day soon and almost every club will have a long list of players who have tested positive (even if most are asymptomatic). The PL should have called off all matches until the Omicron surge blows over. The way it is being mishandled means that some clubs will be lucky and some will be unlucky. But what does the PL care about that as long as there's something to show on global TV?
