Chris Goreham: How Norwich City are challenging football cliches

However, some cliches exist because they are true. So, when you turn up at Stoke City and find that it is indeed cold and windy, it’s hard not to think of it as one of the Championship’s acid tests.

The friendly steward on the door at The Bet 365 Stadium did her best to dispel the myths and end all the jokes she must have heard a million times before.

“We once had to treat a supporter for heat stroke during a game,” she protested. The word that really tells a story in that sentence is ‘once’.

The questions posed by the fabled ‘cold and windy trip to Stoke’ are supposed to be the most difficult to answer. A proper examination of a team’s promotion credentials. That old trope appears to be under threat. What happens when Stoke City themselves can’t do it on a cold and windy day at Stoke?

That’s to take nothing away from Norwich City.

On successive Saturdays the Canaries have put hapless opposition to the sword. Rotherham and Stoke brushed aside 8-0 on aggregate with a ruthlessness that was certainly lacking earlier in the season.

It’s worth remembering that City’s in-form attacking foursome of Ashley Barnes, Borja Sainz, Josh Sargent and Gabriel Sara didn’t all appear on the pitch together until the trip to Hull on January 12.  

It was 27 league games before they were all simultaneously fit enough to play.

“We have to smell blood” is how Barnes put it when asked about the recent goal difference boosting form. A pleasing sentiment suggesting a team relishing the challenges ahead.

What might have been if they’d been able to play together during the autumn slump which saw Norwich down in 17th place in the table?

That question was probably occupying the mind of Stoke’s manager Steven Schumacher. He regularly had his head in his hands at the defensive antics of his team. Perhaps the takeaway from Saturday should be that we tend to cling to whatever cliches we can as a means of reassurance because so much changes in football.

In September David Wagner’s Norwich City couldn’t even do it on a pleasant afternoon in lovely old Devon.

Plymouth Argyle handed out one of the most humiliating beatings at this level that even those with the longest yellow and green memories could recall.

As Schumacher purred about his team’s 6-2 demolition job that afternoon, he couldn’t possibly have predicted his next appearance in the Norwich City story. Impressive performances like that made him the perfect choice to replace Alex Neil at Stoke just before Christmas.

The old terrace standard “You’re getting sacked in the morning” was ringing in Schumacher’s ears as 1700 travelling Canaries enjoyed proving that revenge is a dish best served cold (and windy).

While his fortunes have changed since September so have Wagner’s. The defeat at Plymouth was early in a wretched run of one win in 10 games. Few Championship coaches survive spells like that. For context, Neil had won three in ten when he was sacked by Stoke.

Yet tactical tweaks and the vital return of key players have enabled the Canaries head coach to produce a seriously impressive run of results.

Given the personal issues that impacted Wagner and his family last week it was impossible not to feel pleased for him as he enthusiastically celebrated Sara’s clinically taken goal to put Norwich 2-0 up.

It’s now 44 points from 23 games since mid-November. Over the equivalent of half a season that is not just play-off form but promotion form. Or is that a cliché? We’ll see how accurate that is over the last eight games of the season after the international break. They’ll all be cup finals, but I guess we’ll just have to take each game as it comes.

Commentator’s curse…

There are two new contenders for the Norwich City commentator’s job.

Have you seen the video produced by the club of Onel Hernandez and Jonathan Rowe on the mic during the 5-0 win over Rotherham?

It’s entertaining stuff and very funny. I have prepared a few notes of feedback for them but neither have been in touch so I thought I might as well share them here.

Firstly, the number of bleeps on the video suggests that some of the adjectives they used to describe the wonder goals by Gabriel Sara and Borja Sainz were not, let’s just say, BBC-friendly.

I am not brave enough to put that theory to the test. I used to get anxious enough whenever Norwich City came up against the old QPR and Watford defender Danny Shittu.

For one of the goals Onel is seen turning his back on play. Two jobs where you should never do that are on football commentary and while defending a free kick.  While one Norwich City attack is in its infancy he’s at the back of the box pouring himself a coffee.

This is where the green-eyed monster kicked in and I’m ashamed to admit was my overriding feeling from the video. How come they got a coffee machine in their studio?

Getting a hot drink at most games for us involves pushing through the crowds at half-time to the press room. Then there’s the challenge of pouring a drink and getting it safely back to the seat with enough control to avoid spilling it on anyone but in a timely enough fashion not to miss the start of the second half.

Perhaps we’re better staying off the caffeine during games, it’s tense enough at Carrow Road as it is.