Norwich City fans have fallen out of love with the FA Cup
The unusual sight of some empty seats at Carrow Road. Picture: Paul Chesterton/Focus Images Ltd - Credit: Paul Chesterton/Focus Images Ltd
The FA Cup does not seem to have the same ‘romance’ with the supporters as it once did.
Maybe this is why many of the regular supporters didn’t come to the match on Saturday, or it may be that it was the third home game in under two weeks.
Whatever the reason, Carrow Road had a different atmosphere when kick-off came round.
The pre-match rendition of “On The Ball City” was not sung with as much fervour as usual and the Barclay - at times - was eerily quiet.
In fact, when Man City went 2-0 up with only 31 minutes gone, I took to Twitter to say that some of the crowd were leaving already.
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Although many did just go to the bar early, on the resumption of the second half, some of the seats were still left empty.
By the 80th minute, our little corner of the Barclay was quickly emptying.
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I am sure most supporters, when seeing the Man City team sheet, didn’t really expect us to get much from the game on Saturday, but I am sure they expected the team’s performance to be better than what we got.
Although we didn’t defend well at times, it was quite evident that Robbie Brady and Wes Hoolahan were missed on Saturday as we created very little - even the introduction of Redmond just after the hour didn’t produce anything of note.
So, to roll out the old cliché, we can concentrate on the league now. With two important away matches in four days, we need to put the lacklustre performance from Saturday out of our minds and focus on winning both games.
Both Stoke and Bournemouth have improved a lot since they visited Carrow Road earlier in the season, so neither game is going to be easy.
It certainly won’t be easy when we visit Bournemouth on Saturday, as I am sure – if he is in the team – Lewis Grabban will have something to prove against us.
• Blog post written by Lorraine Taylor
