Canaries tweet their last FA Cup tune. Norwich lose to Manchester United in Cup quarter final.
In an atmosphere that still reminded you of a school playground, Norwich City bowed out of this season's FA Cup with dignity intact but still there is the realisation that their residence in the Premier League may now be in grave jeopardy. After yoyoing back into this year's Premier League Norwich do seem to have taken a liking to their trampoline because the very thought of bouncing back to the top flight does seem to energise them.
It now looks inevitable though that the Canaries from Norfolk's greenest acres will be heading back from whence they came in the Championship but still it was good while it lasted. Norwich, perhaps now infamously, just can't settle in football's top flight and for what now seems an eternity have always flattered to deceive when altitude sickness seems to get the better of them.
The sight of top celebrity chef Delia Smith desperately imploring her Norwich team to victory at half time several seasons ago remains one of the game's more amusing moments. But for whatever reason Norwich remain incapable of remembering their lines and stage fright seems to follow them everywhere. Maybe they should see a footballing psychiatrist since the Carrow Road faithful must be heartily sick of all this instability.
When John Bond was their manager, Norwich were very fetching on the eye, their football spiced with all kinds of fragrant flavours. Norwich were entertaining and certainly one of the most attractive sides in the late 1970s. But since then their football has suffered an attack of the jitters, a side nervous, unsure of themselves always looking for re-assurance. Maybe they should have pretended that Liverpool, Manchester United, Spurs or Arsenal were just optical illusions.
In their FA Cup quarter final tie against a very polished Manchester United side, Norwich only briefly hinted at the kind of form that had completely outplayed their opponents neighbours City earlier on in the season. But this was not the Norwich who had once deeply impressed the neutrals when John Bond was boss roughly 40 years ago.
The truth is that Norwich now looked doomed and condemned to another season in the Championship and any distraction from the Premier League was no more than fleeting. This was never going to be an easy watch for the locals who, you suspect, would much rather have spent a lovely summer evening picking strawberries or potatoes in Norfolk's lush fields. But it was the FA Cup and we're now at the end of June with some incongruous event tacked onto the end of the season as an afterthought.
Still here we were in the FA Cup quarter finals when most of the players, you feel sure, would have much preferred an evening in a Greek taverna or tucking into Spanish paella washed down by a Chateaux Marks and Spencer. Footballers are of course creatures of habit and had you asked any of the players on view yesterday whether a place in a Wembley FA Cup semi final now or a rest and relaxation break in the Costa Brava would be much more to their liking the choice would surely have been predictable.
Football though has to deal with whatever is placed in front of us and although very odd and maybe a touch unsettling for many a traditional football fan this was the FA Cup without its fans and that in itself cast a strange and mystical light on yesterday's fare. Of course the FA Cup has retained something of its old fashioned glamour but for those who can remember the days of rosettes and banners at any FA Cup tie from long ago this was not quite the romantic spectacle of times gone by. Besides Norwich regrettably have been nowhere near a Final appearance and Canaries only sing in coalmines.
Yesterday evening with the summer shadows lengthening and Manchester United were in town. Normally this would have vaguely recalled a David and Goliath Cup tie but by the end of extra time, Norwich were out on their feet. Their rash and careless defender Timm Klose had been sent off for a needless foul on the edge of the Norwich penalty area and the home side were whistling in the wind. Manchester United immediately sensed their moment and went for the yellow and green jugular.
The match itself played out in much the way most of us had expected. Manchester United, with the always venturesome Luke Shaw at the back, Harry Maguire, quietly domineering at the heart of the United defence, Eric Bailly, all hustle and bustle in front of the United back four, United began to assert their customary imprint on the Cup tie. Their football, once so beautifully sculpted and chiselled under Alex Ferguson, still has all those silks and subtleties that continue to give so much pleasure to the football aficionado and the purist who insists on technical correctness.
Under Ole Gunnar Solksjaer United are still a work in progress and the moment of completion may be a number of seasons away but the signs are there and the players fit the bill perfectly. Scott Mctominay may not be another David Beckham in the making as of yet but he still exudes an obvious authority in midfield. With Juan Mata still as quick witted and creative as ever even at the age of 32 and Bruno Fernandes an outstanding player with so much to give United, this is a Manchester United side that could reach the stars without quite the smooth finesse of the Beckham, Giggs, Butt and Scholes era.
We must not overlook the sterling contribution of Jesse Lingard, a home grown Old Ttrafford product, an England international par excellence with a sweetness of touch and a desire to attack with the ball in dangerous areas that never fails to catch the eye. Lingard was forever probing, buzzing, prompting, scheming and searching, linking effectively and powerfully with his United colleagues, the busy bee that provided United with most of the honey.
United eventually made their attacking superiority count when it looked as if Norwich had possibly rumbled United's cunning plan. United took the lead early on after a dazzling passage of play where the ball seemed to be stuck in the green and yellow half like glue on paper. A neat procession of passes found Luke Shaw whose clipped cross low across the Norwich area ultimately found the feet of Odion Ighalo who, turning his defender sharply, shielded the ball carefully before flicking out a lethal foot, guiding the ball firmly past helpless keeper Tim Krul.
In the second half though Norwich surged forward and broke forward with a speed of thought that had quite clearly left United feeling hot and bothered. Their football had much greater clarity and purpose where before there had only been faint suggestions and blurred images. Jamas Lewis looked far more confident on the ball while the likes of Alexander Tettey, Emiliano Buendia and Lukas Ruff were badgering and beavering away, chipping away at United's resistance.
When the promising and forward thinking Todd Cantwell joined in with Norwich's hitherto misfiring attack, it looked as though the home side were emerging from their inhibited shell. Norwich were now seeking rather than retreating, enterprising rather than withering. With the game seemingly running away from them, Norwich were given their thoroughly deserved equaliser. After a spurt of close control and cohesive football on the touchline, Norwich worked the ball smartly across the pitch and Cantwell, latching onto the ball with great delight, cracked the ball with some finality high into the United net. It was, as they say in football parlance, a screamer.
With the game now into injury time all it took was one flash point to decide this moderately engaging Cup quarter final, Norwich, perhaps smelling blood, now saw red. The aforementioned Timm Klose grabbed hold of a United attacker in front of the referee and had to be given his marching orders. Norwich were now without a life raft and just disappeared from the game.
In the closing stages of extra time United now lay siege to a Norwich side with an extremely fragile chin. The attacks came thick and fast, United peppering the Norwich goal with a sustained assault that always looked as if it would result in a winner for United. It almost felt as though Norwich were clinging on to some metaphorical cliff and hoping that penalties would come to their rescue. It was not to be.
Now it was that Luke Shaw, still capable and competent in possession, who picked up the ball from another clever pass. Shaw, weighing up his options with both perception and shrewdness, floated a low, diagonal ball into the Norwich six yard box and after the ball had been laid off to him, Harry Maguire who had been influential in so many of Englnd's World Cup displays two years ago, nipped in front of his defender before clipping the ball past the keeper for United's winner.
And so it is that Manchester United march into another record breaking FA Cup semi final and probably another Cup Final to boot. Meanwhile most of us were still trying to imagine a Cup Final without any supporters from the two respective finalists. For those of us who have avidly followed and endured both the fortunes and misfortunes of our club side, this still feels like an insult to our intelligence rather like watching our favourite movie with the volume turned down or an art gallery without any tourists to cast admiring eyes on.
Still, football is undoubtedly living in some parallel universe, a galaxy far away from a well trodden Earth, a world that has clearly lost its bearings. We are being asked to watch football that has quite literally lost its identity, a sport undermined and humiliated by men with stupid looking blinkers over their eyes and no idea what to do with perhaps the most important influence on the game. These are not the thoughts of a bitter and resentful type more of a plea from the heart, a cry in the wilderness for some degree of sense. An FA Cup Final without its supporters still feels like another game entirely. Wembley, Wembley! Here we go. Here we go Here we go!
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