Norwich City 0 - West Bromwich Albion 1

Date: Saturday 5th April 2014 
Competition: Barclays Premier League
Norwich:
4.8
WBA:
7.5
Foster 7.7, Reid 6.6, McAuley 7.0, Olsson 7.8, Ridgewell 6.5, Amalfitano 7.5, Morrison 6.6, Mulumbu 7.3, Dorrans 7.8 (Gera, 77 4.6 (O'Neil, 77 6.1)), Sessegnon 6.8, Vydra 6.2 (Berahino, 70 6.4)
Unused subs: Myhill, Anichebe, Dawson, Thievy
Manager: Pepe Mel 7.8
Scorers: Amalfitano (16)
Referee: Mark Clattenburg (Tyne & Wear) 7.0
Attendance: 26,859   Home Fans 4.1   Away Fans 8.8

Summary:

Albion notched up a valuable away win in their fight to avoid relegation thanks to another early goal from Morgan Amalfitano. Pepe Mel brought Jonas Olsson back into the defence following the end of his suspension, with Craig Dawson dropping to the bench but the rest of the side was unchanged.

In the sixteenth minute, Amalfitano received the ball outside the Norwich box, went past a defender and fired home past John Ruddy. Backed by a noisy away following, Albion resisted strong Norwich pressure in the second half after the home side had been booed off the pitch at the break, and had some scares with the ball hitting the woodwork twice, but their attack died out towards the end of the game and Albion showed that they'd learned from last week's disappointment by keeping possession and taking the ball into the corner when they needed to.

The win lifts Albion to sixteenth place, just above Norwich on a far superior goal difference, five points above the relegation zone and with a game in hand on most of the teams below them.

Kev Buckley:

Amalfitano - a Sneekes for these times?

Is it too much to hope that Amalfitano might now go off on a similar scoring run to that of the great Richard Sneekes after the latter's arrival at the club?

There are some similarities: the foreigh pedigree; both open to claims of not working hard enough from the terraces, though, of course, Amalfitano's been here a while before whatever luck or judgement saw him get a "second chance" but maybe he could become a part of the next evolution of the Albion, a part of what will be looked back on as,"Pepe's project"?

There've been the obvious suggestions that the club don't want him but, given the situation the club found themselevs in, in the wake of Clarke's tenure and the senior players' recent favouring of an approach to survial that encompassed not really bothering much before the halftime oranges got doled out, was it really any surprise that the club didn't automatically exercise their option to buy by April the 1st?

Would Amalfitano have even been interested in being made a Possion d'Avril, what with the Albion still in the net that's yet to be empited of clubs that will get thrown back for another swin in the top flight ocean?

But for some woeful finishing by Norwich, Amalfitano might well be all but out of the door, however, woeful Norwich were, and even with Albion back to their dropping deep and hanging on best, after an opening twenty minutes or so in which they seemed to have realised that pressing and putting in challenges near halfway is less risky that leaving the opposition free to lump it into your box, his goal, an extremely well taken one, may well have been both the catalyst for the club's top flight survival and thus for his future at our club in that top flight.

Indeed, in that first twenty or so minutes, Ridgewell's attempt to give us as much time to play in "come from behind mode" as possible aside, everyone else looked as though they should have a future in the top flight: Sessengon and Vydra nearly clicked on a couple of occasions; Dorrans, deployed wide on the left but doing enough coming inside to echo "the Brunt role", had, and seemed happy with, time on, and made good use of, the ball. He even had a "can hit them from all angles" effort that was on target. What more could you ask for?

Mulumbu, someone who has said he'll not be here, no matter where here is next season, showed, once again, why he'll be the most missed of any of the current squad, running the show alongside "Bruiser", who did a good job keeping things ticking over with some neat and tidy passing, in the middle

The defence too, in the first twenty, coped well with the little they had to deal with, and usually found a pass to a colleague in space after they'd won it back or after Norwich had coughed it up, however as the game wore on, and it did wear on, the distribution from the back ceratinly dropped a good few notches below buenos whilst the back itself dropped deeper and deeper.

I suppose that the case could be made that, with Norwich so poor in front of goal, why wouldn't you sit back and give them every opportunity to miss high and wide, and so watch their heads drop even further. It's a case that should be dimissed.

In the end though, one side that's been having a hard time of it of late didn't turn things around against the Albion and who knows, maybe it's finally the Albion who have turned it around.

Finally, you have to admire a manager who, on the back of that performance, comes out and says that if we now go on to beat Spurs we could be nearly safe.

A question though: both sets of players were seemingly being pelted by those yellow things that the home fans had been given to rouse their side into going like the clappers, so were they substantial enough to have done anyone any harm? I couldn't see that any stewards were too bothered by it.

Paul Gainham:

So we break through the psychologically important 30 point barrier and the pendulum has swung back in our favour. 2 more wins, 6 points and I think we will be safe.

From 6 games, surely we can do that?

One thing showed this group of players really wanted this win, if you looked at most of them at the end they were totally knackered, they had literally run themselves into the ground over the course of 90 mins and on the back of that, we got a truly precious 3 points.

What was interesting for me here was that we DID have a game plan and that revolved around not allowing Norwich any width. Their usually most productive forward route is the interplay between Martin and Snodgrass down their right. Dorrans stuck to Martin like a terrior and Ridgewell in fairness had one of his better games keeping close to Snodgrass. Job done, at least for most of the game. On top of that, certainly for most of the 1H, we harried and pressed them and they had nowhere to go, the ball often coming back to Bassong who typically was forced to play across their back line.

Once we scored what I thought was a really well worked goal, we did not give up on that game plan either ? we kept the pressure on and the Norwich fans started to turn on their team as they could see we were stopping them playing.

Second half was err different?..

I really don?t think Mel told them to sit back, but sit back we did. Maybe it?s a sign of fragile confidence, maybe it?s just human nature but for me and many around me it looked like it would just be a matter of time before they scored. Overall they hit the woodwork twice, once well saved header from Foster in the 1H but certainly in the second, they put us under real pressure.

And yet our defence were immense. Olsson was outstanding, McCauley a rock, even Reid and Ridgewell kept players like Snodgrass and Redmond mostly quiet. We looked really solid as if the nonsense in the press this week had galvanized the spirit of the team. Maybe Morrison should swing a few more right hooks.

MOTM for me was Dorrans. Excellent going forward, always looked settled on the ball and he played a really key defensive role as I have said stopping Martin getting forward.

Also, when Berahino came on in the 2H, he was cheered by the faithful and how odd that he and others when we had the ball in forward positions late on, looked to move the ball to the corners and keep it there 

Our fans were superb for the whole 90 mins as well, created a fantastic atmosphere and when we started to sing ?he?s going to Brazil, Liam Ridgewell, he?s going to Brazil? you knew we were having a good time as well.

Contrast that with the Norwich fans. The boo?s got worse, chants of ?Hughton out? started up and they threw loads of those bloody clackers on the pitch. John Ruddy confronted one fan behind his goal at the end and it was mentioned on the radio that Martin has complained to the club about being abused by their fans.

And we thought we were in disarray??

Player Marks

  • Foster 7 Couple of really good saves but his goal kicking was woeful, truly woeful
  • Reid 7 Did well, looked solid and when Redmond came on, kept him quiet
  • Olsson 9 Immense. Great to have him back. He literally won everything and marshalled the back 4 brilliantly
  • McCauley 8 A rock alongside Olsson
  • Ridgewell 7 He wont be going to Brazil but this was one of his best games. Kept Snodgrass quiet.
  • Dorrans 9 MOTM, he looked like the Dorrans we know he can be. Excellent going forwards, brilliant defensive work on the left with Ridgewell
  • Morrison 7 Worked hard
  • Mulumbu 8 Great performance, in the thick of most of the central action
  • Amalfitano 7 Great goal, some good things but could have done more.
  • Sessegnon 8 Another one who worked really hard and worried their back line whenever he got the ball.
  • Vydra 6 At times can look menacing but he is simply not cut out for this level.

Subs

  • Berahino 7 Looked up for it, some great runs with the ball and was conscious not to be too gung ho late on
  • Gera N/A Came on, got injured and went off.
  • O?Neill N/A Replaced an injured Gera, not on long enough to mark.

Coach 8 Got the game plan right and the team looked like they had a galvanized spirit