A 4-4 draw against a newly-relegated side managed by our former captain.
Considering you’d have been tempted to buy a lottery ticket if you saw Norwich score a goal in the latter half of last season there’s plenty to be excited about, but as was the nature of this match a great deal of focus landed on the final penalty decision. Sometimes we feel like it’s Norwich City against the rest of the footballing world.
“This could be a difficult year for Norwich.”
“I find it difficult to find anything to be excited about.”
If you spent any time on social media this summer you’ll likely have come across those comments, or similar ones, from a number of channels focusing on the Championship.
It was far harder to find coverage expecting Norwich to do well – or indeed predicting us to finish above our recently-promoted rivals down the road. The pre-season consensus was that Norwich are going to struggle, that we’re not worth having high hopes for.
It's not as if Norwich fans were predicting much better for their team. The loss of our most prolific striker, the potential hangover from last season, and the constant nagging doubt of 'are we really solid enough in midfield?' did not make for the most optimistic pre-season expectations.
You’d be hard pressed to find anyone who is truly expecting us to storm the league, despite a fairly blistering start, but there’s something about official channels voicing these thoughts that acts as a red rag to a bull. It’s akin to siblings on a playground: “I can talk badly about them, but if you do we’re going to have problems.”
That’s not to say these predictions are all bad. Taking negative comments from high-profile individuals and using them as motivation is hardly a new tactic; managers have been sticking negative newspaper headlines around the dressing room to give their team an extra edge for decades.
Creating this siege mentality can be one of the most useful things to happen to a football team. Jose Mourinho has made a career out of building ‘us versus them’ mindsets. Stuart Webber used it to his favour during the 2018/19 title-winning campaign. The belief that there really is someone out to get you strengthens connections, makes the existing relationships within your team stronger.
Gary Lineker often states that, if a team has appeared on Match of the Day, he’s had Tweets from their fans saying the programme’s pundits are biased against them. Every weekend, the fans of the team who are on last flood his mentions, regardless of whether their team have just played out a goalless draw with minimal shots on target: “You just hate us!”
Carrow Road is louder when refereeing decisions are perceived to go against us. Think of the roars when a Hull City defender handled the ball and was allowed to skip away from the box, no punishment delivered. Often, last season, our ground was at its rowdiest when we were the victims of an apparent injustice. Moments such as George Baldock pushing Max Aarons into the advertising hoardings in April, or Steven Fletcher’s very lucky goal a few years ago raise the volume levels and energise the crowd.
There is, of course, no great conspiracy against Norwich. Referees aren’t out to get us, no matter how much the ‘onepenalty in 58 league games’ might make it feel that way.
Logically we know this, know that pundits' predictions and penalty decisions are all part of the cyclical nature of football, yet there’s a little illogical part of us that lets the doubt creep in. We can plaster the penalty stats and league predictions to the wall of our brains, giving us that little extra push when times get hard this season.
It’s not Norwich against the rest of the world, but sometimes it might help to think it is.
Share