BFTG Norwich,

[windermere_royal]

The best performance of the season by a country mile. the scorline doesn`t do it justice, only an appalling refereeing decision gave the impression it was a close fought game.
The players had fire in their bellies today, something we never saw under Adkins, for me Pearce MOTM.

[Norfolk Royal]

Yeah we looked good today, everyone wanted the ball, should have won that by two or more really.

Norwood was the pick for me, made some great tackles and used the ball well, Hector and Pearce good, best game I've seen HRK have for a long time, Obita very good in his correct position. Excellent all round in fact.

[Loyal royal 247]

motm simon cox, great preformance everysingle player workedhard

[Jack Celliers]

Can anybody explain their goal?

Great performance for all 90 minutes. Hrk man of the match?

[blueroyals]

8s all around. Absolutely fantastic performance.

[Royalwaster]

Can anybody explain their goal?

Great performance for all 90 minutes. Hrk man of the match?

HRK played well? SC a miracle worker ...

[blueroyals]

Can anybody explain their goal?

Great performance for all 90 minutes. Hrk man of the match?

Ball went out for throw to Norwich. Ref signals for Reading substitution. McCleary goes down with an injury. As he begins to hobble off, SC tells him to wait to he goes down and gets treatment. Lots of movement on the bench as I assume they are changing the substitution to take McCleary off as he's injured. McCleary finally hobbles off and the ref allows play to continue, despite originally stopping play for the substitution rather than the injury.

The ref was absolutely appalling. Both sets of fans would agree.

[3points]

Anyone get a decent view of their goal (I know the ref shouldn't have re-started the game), but it seemed as though the shot went straight through Federici (or that's what it looked like from my position in the North Stand). Surely he should have done better?

[Schmeichel the dog]

Just goes to show that you don't win games on possession stats and passing the ball about across the back four. Great shift by all the lads today against a decent Norwich team. Even the crowd joined in in the second half.

[windermere_royal]

Anyone get a decent view of their goal (I know the ref shouldn't have re-started the game), but it seemed as though the shot went straight through Federici (or that's what it looked like from my position in the North Stand). Surely he should have done better?

Feds had no chance, it was right in the corner

[RG7Fan]

The ref was absolutely appalling. Both sets of fans would agree.

Absolute shocker - and he missed another potential penalty is the second half when Murray was clearly pushed into the goal and out of the way of a cracking cross.

[SCIAG]

Can anybody explain their goal?

Great performance for all 90 minutes. Hrk man of the match?

Ball went out for throw to Norwich. Ref signals for Reading substitution. McCleary goes down with an injury. As he begins to hobble off, SC tells him to wait to he goes down and gets treatment. Lots of movement on the bench as I assume they are changing the substitution to take McCleary off as he's injured. McCleary finally hobbles off and the ref allows play to continue, despite originally stopping play for the substitution rather than the injury.

The ref was absolutely appalling. Both sets of fans would agree.

That isn't quite right - they were planning to sub McCleary in addition to Cox. At best, it is a terrible miscommunication. Unless we told the ref we wanted to wait, then I expect he'll be refereeing in League 2 for a few weeks.

A good team performance from us but an utterly gutless one from Norwich. They were dreadful, no midfield, and on the few occasions Jerome and Hooper got on the ball they were toothless. They deserved to lose.

If we don't add a striker and Pogrebnyak remains injured then I'd be interested in seeing Guthrie, Norwood and Williams/Karacan/Tshibola continuing together. Having Guthrie and Norwood on together provides us with another quality passer plus a bit more defensive solidarity.

Ratings:
Federici 7 - capable whenever called upon, could have come off his line a bit more
Gunter 8 - very good, attacked well and not threatened defensively. Excellent movement in particularly. The McCleary effect?
Hector 7 - fine, cope well with two experienced strikers. Arguably his best defensive performance but not particularly outstanding.
Pearce 7 - much the same. Loved his "handstand" in the first half
Obita 8- very good, provided real width on the left and took players on. Must stick at left back.
McCleary 6.5 - some tricky movement but obviously not at his sharpest. Looking forward to seeing him in a few weeks
Williams 7 - again, not quite at his best but didn't do anything wrong.
Norwood 8 MOTM - very good, loads of tackles and interceptions plus at least one brilliant pass
HRK 6.5 - not his best game but some promising moves
Cox 8
Murray 7.5 (two assists?)

Guthrie 7
Mackie 7
Blackman n/a
Ref 3

[sandman]

Anyone get a decent view of their goal (I know the ref shouldn't have re-started the game), but it seemed as though the shot went straight through Federici (or that's what it looked like from my position in the North Stand). Surely he should have done better?

Shot had a lot of power and lots of swerve.

[RG7Fan]

Ref 3

You are having a laugh here? -5 at most!

[sandman]

Ref 3

You are having a laugh here? -5 at most!

Thing is, apart from not booking Jerome for an awful dive he had done quite well up to their goal.

[Chappers93]

Very good team performance, very organised and effective in our game plan.

HRK had his bet game this season and both Pearce and Hector were very solid with a much improved Gunter too. Norwood and McCleary both very good too and I think we'll miss Murray if he leaves.

Ref was a joke, our fans were decent thin our time wasting tactics are a bit OTT but three points is all that matters

[The Real Sandhurst Royal]

Great way to close out 2014.

More of the same please for the 2015.

[Nameless]

Have to say that refereeing decision reminded me of the classic at EP many years ago v Borough in the League Cup.
Can't quite see a way today's one can be explained , suspect the ref simply forgot that we had already got a substitution waiting to happen and simply restarted play once McLeary was off the pitch. We all make mistakes, some of us make them in front of 20.000 people though.
Saying we should have coped with it also misses the point that we were expecting the subs to happen , it wasn't just that we were caught not concentrating.

On a side not I thought effort and energy was noticeably higher despite it being the second game of the holiday. Small steps, but in the right direction

[sandman]

Very good win, looked like we were trying to score every time we attacked whereas previously under Adkins we weren't, in the words of Alex Pearce, "trying to score every time we've got the ball". Their goal was a complete howler from the ref and unfortunately took away a clean sheet from what looks like a far more solid defensive unit.

Feds - Quiet game, did everything that he had to do, no chance with the goal. 7

Gunter - Much improved but still needs to defend those crosses better. 7
Pearce - Strong defensively and lead the team well when they could have lost their cool after the refs mistake. 7.5
Hector - Improving but still has his dodgy moments. 7
Obita - Looked a lot better, needs to cut out the slightly hopeful long balls. 7

McCleary - Slowly but surely getting back to his best, linked up well with Gunter. 7
Norwood - Got his passing range back and made some good tackles. 7
Williams - Motm - Much better back to the Danny Williams we know he can be, broke up play well and drove the team forward from Midfield. 8
HRK - Great run and cross field ball in the second half and a couple more decent runs where he unfortunately chose the wrong option. Penalty seemed a bit tame and on another day might have been saved. 7
Cox - Drifted in and out of the game but took his goal well and showed a lot of effort. 7

Murray - Much improved from the last few times I've seen him and led the line well. Wasn't much fussed about him staying before but if the price isn't too exorbitant then I wouldn't mind keeping him.7.5

Subs:

Mackie - Worked really hard when he came on and displayed some good skills a couple of times. Reminds me of Stephen Hunt in his first couple of seasons. 7
Blackman - Held the ball well in the corner and won a free kick after a good run. 6.5
Guthrie - One good tackle. Felt he could have put a bit more effort in when Gunter played the ball down the line and he didn't even try to run for it, though he could have been nervous about his calf tbf. Played a bit further forward than usual as well, will be interesting to see if he reacts better to that now than he did the last time a manager wanted him to play higher up the pitch. 6.5

[MeMeMe]

motm simon cox, great preformance everysingle player workedhard

+1 for Cox, he played like he had a wasp in his pants... he was running all over the pitch, great performance