What a disappointment. As Spanish quite rightly said, we cannot take any positives out of that performance. There was uncertain and, at times, sloppy defending, persistence fouling, a severe lack of creativity and clear cut chances, an unhealthy over-reliance on long balls, the declining form of Daryl Murphy (who was once again anonymous), and our lack of squad strength in depth as a result of limited finances.
Now the mitigating factors are Norwich, as much as it pains me to say it, have benefited from recent Premier League experience, have a healthy financial status, a forward-thinking, progressive young manager, and an established, strong squad that should, on paper, be among the favourites for promotion. Not only that, they're the form team in this division.
Maybe I'm being a bit pessimistic, considering the wounds from the recent derby day defeat are still fresh, but our form in 2015 has suggested to me that clubs have figured us out. Considering our team, on-field investment, and style of play, it was probably always a question of 'when' not 'if' we were going to come into some bad form and slip down the table.
Richard Chaplow, Cole Skuse, Jay Tabb, and Luke Varney do not provide a consistent quality going forward. The two loanees have underlined the lack of investment and our failure to sign good, creative players. The last time we lost to Norwich, we went on a great run of form, I'm not hopeful we'll embark on a similar run of results. We have good players in this squad and, in Mick McCarthy, we arguably have one of the division's better managers, but it's clear he needs investment and also needs to be big enough to realise that playing direct football, with a lack of a credible creative outlet, whilst shackled to an arcane 4-4-2 formation, is not going to produce many points this season.
No matter what some of the naysayers argue on here, we've had a much improved season with some fantastic results, but it would be a shame to squander a play off place this term after our previous form. Hopefully our squad can display the obvious team spirit within the club to turn around our fortunes and inflict some surprising results this month.