Match Day Thread Stoke v Norwich

Open goal, free header missed by Stoke

 

We really could easily have scored 4 goals.
Hope we don't regret missing them.

 

Me too.

 

Did you score!?

 

Seen a replay and I think it may be because the last touch was off a Stoke player closing Sainz down. It looked as if the pace on the ball was affected by the challenge. WhoScored had no assist for the goal either.

 

Núñez is having a poor game.

 

That's the S theme out the window

 

Barnes gets our 3rd

 

7.1 on WhoScored.

 

Barnes has had his detractors, including me to be honest, but I think he’s grown throughout the season and seems to prosper next to Sargent.

His reactions there were excellent, everybody else had lost sight of the ball

 

Now if Bristol City and/or Plymouth could mount a comeback, that would really make the day

 

Do well!

 

The table looks good:

3 point lead and the GD of +15 is well ahead of Hull and Preston, but now one point behind Coventry, but they still have to play Leeds, Southampton, Ipswich and Hull.

 

I Didn't know what to expect when I woke up, but another clean sheet and multiple goals, was it as comfortable as the scoreline suggests?

 

Probably more so.

 

It was comfortable, but Stoke were major contributors to that. They could well have taken the lead early on, when Hoever showed McCallum a clean pair of heels and got to just short of the by-line more or less unchallenged, to fire a vicious, rising shot at Gunn. Despite the narrow angle, it beat Gunn but glanced off the crossbar and away. Then, soon after we had scored our second, Laurent was presented with a free header at a corner, which he put over the bar when it looked easier to score. The other contributory factor was Ben Pearson's injury, which saw him substituted on 20 mins when the scores were still level. Up to that point, he had been proving highly disruptive and his departure left a huge hole in Stoke's midfield, which we expertly exploited for our first two goals.

 

It was best summed up by their coach:

"I thought Norwich were the better team in every department, more aggressive with the ball and played with more quality. We were off it, way below the standards that we played at the last week and got the result out of it that we deserved. It was too easy for them to play. We were a bit too deep as a team and didn't get close enough - it took us 78 minutes to win a tackle. If you can't do the basics well enough you're not going to win games."

 

Did anyone see what happened to Lungi? Report said he came off injured. I really hope not, just as he was getting some game time

 

Wagner said afterwards that Lungi had been unwell for a few days and that he'd come off for that reason, not a head or other injury. That fits with Lungi playing on after the collision with Ennis, and then just sitting down on the pitch.