Does arguing suggest passionate winners or sinking losers?
As a football fan I am very jealous of Rugby Union for many things, opposing crowd’s not straining to kill each other, alcohol being allowed ‘in view of the pitch,’ the crunching of men’s bones against one another, without the amateur dramatics, but mostly for one thing, the un-questioned respect for match officials.
The first-half at Ninian Park was quite frankly, embarrassing, from a Norwich City point of view. How City went in at half time only one goal down, I will never quite be sure and the fact that, but for two fantastic saves from Cardiff keeper Neil Alexander, we could have taken home some points, seems ludicrous.
Beyond the comedic mistakes of some of our players on Saturday was a nasty little side-show that I was unsure of how to take. City appear to have become perennial moaners!
Throughout the game, and especially in the first-half, Youssef Safri, Gary Doherty, Dickson Etuhu, Andy Hughes and Chris Martin were all warned about the way they had aggressively and invariably unjustly, screamed at referee Graham Salisbury for a decision given against them.
In the second-half substitute Paul Mcveigh even had a pop at the linesman for an offside decision that he had given against Chris Martin.
I was sitting almost directly in line with the linesman and the Cardiff defence when the decision was made and Martin was clearly just offside when the ball was played to him.
Yet, Peter Grant, and subsequently Mcveigh, took it upon themselves to yell at the poor linesman about how wrong he was and how they hope God pours scorn on their children, ridiculous!
How Grant can react by storming up the touchline until he is restrained by the 4th official, for the second time in two games (he did so against Derby on Tuesday as well), about a decision that he is some 30 to 40 yards away from, is beyond me.
How can he see better than the linesman that Martin was onside from his technical area?
He simply can’t and would be surprised if he is not fined and maybe even given a touchline ban by the FA for the two incidents.
I apologise if what I have written so far seems very negative, as regular readers of Freeze Frame will realise that I’m a big fan of our Scottish leader, but it was how uncomfortable the actions of manager and players made me feel that got me thinking.
Can the way that our players and manager acted be considered as passion to the cause that we can both relate to and be proud of, or is it detrimental, negative, unjust frustration?
From a neutral point of view I despise the way that footballers treat referees and believe that the powers that be could be doing a lot more to support officials, who already have a virtually impossible job to do.
Referees are assaulted all over the country every weekend in local football and until these problems can be sorted, starting at the top, the FA will continue to struggle to recruit referees.
Through yellow and green tinted spectacles though, I can at least take some comfort in the fact that the insolence shown by City on Saturday shows that the players and coaches care about winning, they are passionate about their cause, they want to fight for their ever-loving and loyal supporters and that, it has certainly never done Manchester United any harm. However wrong it may be, success is all that matters.
The game in Wales was to be honest, a bit of a stinker!
The football certainly did not have the supporters at Ninian Park salivating but the News of The World’s Soccer Angels cheerleading squad certainly did at half time.
Gary Doherty looked pretty solid in the air against a lively and strong Steve Thompson, unfortunately he was as awful and panic ridden when the ball was on the floor as we have quickly come to realise this season.
Doherty continued to just put his foot through the ball when under little pressure and he was not alone. Both full-backs, Adam Drury and Andy Hughes, had decided that they had the passing range of Steven Gerrard and kept attempting huge, difficult to bring under control, diagonal cross-field balls to our wide-men.
It was as if all the recent progress had been forgotten again and after careless mistake followed by careless mistake, the confidence was visibly draining from supposedly in-form players, on a good pitch and in perfect footballing weather conditions.
Etuhu put himself about well and tried to out muscle the Cardiff players but very rarely actually gained possession from his efforts. He appears to lack the vital footballing brain of a central-midfield player that allows him to predict play and take up an early attacking or defensive position, he just reacts when the ball is near him.
Once Darren Huckerby had moved out wide, allowing him to run at players like he does best, City looked much better. Safri was winning balls and spraying the ball out to Huckerby and Simon Lappin much more often and it was because of Huckerby that Dion Dublin managed to force Alexander into an outstanding save, that he had a goal disallowed for a narrow offside and that we had a late penalty appeal.
Birmingham is going to be another tough game that we may struggle to get anything from but if City can try and play simpler football and do the basics better, Huckerby will always cause team’s problem in this division, as long as he doesn’t have his back to goal.
I think I’m going to start calling Peter Grant the ‘Chess-Master,’ for the way our poor gaffer desperately tries to move the players around mid-game like they are pawns on his proverbial yellow and green chessboard.
How the players can decipher what he means is beyond me because his hands move quicker and point in more directions than the poor sign language narrator on Sunday’s Hollyoaks omnibus!
The loan files – Ryan Jarvis played the whole game in Leyton Orient’s 1-0 away win against Chesterfield on Saturday. Although he didn’t score, the Orient Official website says he played a key part in their winner, saying “Jarvis was heavily involved, chesting Wayne Corden’s pass into Tudor’s path, and the winger showed a cool head in front of goal.”
The Orient rivals.net site described Ryan’s performance as: “Ryan Jarvis - 7 - Was the O's main goal threat, making intelligent runs. Came close in the first half with a low left footed shot but in a game of few chances that was as good as it got.”
Ian Henderson played the whole of Rotherham’s painful 5-1 home defeat to Port Vale but according to the Millers’ Official website Hendo had two shots well saved, hit the crossbar and had a hand in setting up the goal for Delroy Facey.
With former City and Man Utd striker Mark Robbins now in charge of League One’s bottom team, hopefully he can impart some goal-scoring wisdom on Hendo as it is looking increasingly likely that the youngster will be leaving Carrow Road this summer.
Andrew Fisk came on as a sub in the second-half of Kings Lynn’s first game in two weeks. The 2-1 win over Northwood at The Walks keeps Keith Webb’s men in the hunt for promotion but Fisk needs to be starring in the Southern League Premier Division if he is to earn himself a real chance with Norwich.