After a thrilling 2-2 draw with West Brom for Norwich City, Samuel Seaman looks at six things you might have missed from the Black Country.
1 - Feisty Fisher
Kellen Fisher has made a habit of thrilling fans with meaty challenges and substantial defensive interventions, defying his slight frame with a series of old school tackles this season. That style of play comes with an edge, however, and the 20-year-old was already walking a disciplinary tightrope when he arrived at The Hawthorns.
He fell off it midway through the second half when halting a promising Baggies attack meant his fifth booking of the season, and as a result he’ll miss tomorrow’s clash against Plymouth Argyle with a one-game suspension.
Jack Stacey’s encouraging performance at right-back will have calmed fears of a drop-off in that position, but the spread of City’s selection crisis to the previously-unaffected defensive department will be a source of frustration for Johannes Hoff Thorup.
Much has been made of the Canaries’ recent struggles against fellow birds, with Bristol City’s Robins, Sheffield Wednesday’s Owls and Cardiff’s Bluebirds all beating them before the international break. Whether the streak has ended against West Brom, though, is up for debate.
On one hand they do have a song thrush on their badge, and all three crests of those aforementioned clubs boast the relevant birds. If that’s the criteria then Norwich have put things to bed with a draw, but involve nicknames and it’s murkier territory.
With the ‘Baggies’ moniker supposedly based on their rivalry with Aston Villa, Albion can’t claim to have a bird as theirs. With Plymouth’s Pilgrims and Luton's Hatters coming up it won’t be a concern for now, but January’s Swansea meeting should reveal the truth.
3 - Dodgy defending
As NCFC Numbers pointed out on X, the hosts’ first-half double meant City conceded twice in six consecutive games outside the top flight for the first time since 2007, when Glenn Roeder succeeded caretaker manager Jim Duffy.
The statistic may sound trivial, but it highlights the defensive frailties that have meant they’re now winless in seven games.
With Josh Sargent, Marcelino Nunez and Kenny McLean all key to Thorup’s attempts to defend from the front, that’s understandable. None of them, after all, were available in the West Midlands. But the Dane will be fully focused on ensuring that run stays at six, even if he does love entertaining football.
The almost-indisputable man of the match for Norwich was Emiliano Marcondes, who sealed it with his first goal in yellow and green. His finish was emblematic of his performance as a whole, ending a perfectly-timed run with an angled strike into the bottom corner.
Add to that his scintillating combination with Borja Sainz for the second and there wasn’t much to fault from the free signing, whom few expected to be quite this important quite this quickly.
Recruited as a squad option in a threadbare area, it was hard to imagine he’d displace popular loanee Anis Ben Slimane when he arrived. But with McLean back tomorrow and Nunez following at the weekend, Thorup has a very difficult decision to make.
5 - Gibbs over Gordon
It seemed like the experiment with Liam Gibbs as an attacking option ended with David Wagner’s sacking, but it was revived again when he replaced Amankwah Forson midway through the second half.
Not only did that feel like a strange deployment of the man most expect to be a central option henceforth, it also meant he was introduced before both Christian Fassnacht and Kaide Gordon.
Consider the fact that Oscar Schwartau was the next cab off the rank when Gibbs returned to midfield, and it doesn’t look good for the futures of the wide pair at Carrow Road.
After an electrifying start to the Championship season, it's been a relatively barren period for talisman Sainz. He hadn't gone two league matches without scoring until he fired a blank in that Bristol City loss, and has now failed to score in three in a row.
In truth it was bound to happen at some point, and the Spaniard had set the bar incredibly high, but he'll have noticed when Josh Maja went within a single strike of his golden boot leadership with the game's fourth goal.
For that reason and many others he'll hope to be back on the scoresheet soon, but it was an impressive afternoon regardless. He played a key role in City's turnaround, created chances and went close multiple times. He's not doing too badly, that's fair to say.
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