Norwich City 0 - 0 Walsall : Canaries fail to take flight!!

Yep like most people I think that was boring to watch, frustrating to witness the constant use of the long ball; hoofing it up to Holt, who was being marked by McDonald a man the size of the jolly Green Giant.  The game was crying out for something different; while we seemed devoid of any other ideas. 

But you have to give credit to Walsall, they came and did what they were told to do and did it very well and could so have easily taken all the spoils with a little better finishing, unfortunately we are going to have to sit through a few games like at home this season. The onus will be on us as the home side to break them down, but we will certainly have to try something different than what we did yesterday.  I would imagine that Walsall's two centre backs were more than happy to play on through the night having long hit and hope balls pumped at them; surely someone could see it was not working, yet still it carried on.
Holt looked cream cracked by half time and I wasn't surprised he was being beaten in the air and clattered all afternoon, wasn't it sad as he has so much more to his game. 

Despite all that there were some positives, what a find in Forster, nice to see a keeper who can use both feet, not scared to come and make a ball his, not worried about telling his defenders off and he wasn't a slouch when it came to saving on the ground either.  He has clearly a very bright future ahead of him, I can see why that Lambert thinks Rudd isn't quite ready, compared to Forster he does need to beef up a little.

Askou seems to better getting better each game as he settles to his new surroundings and English style, yes he made a couple of mistakes but overall he was quite solid my man of the match. Nelson looks a no nonsense defender a little slow when playing against a small striker but will get better the more games he plays.  I was a little worried at times by the way the central two were pulled out to cover Semmy who seemed to have gone missing,leaving a hole in the middle' fortunately it didn't happen that many times and we got away with it.

Hard to make any sound judgements on the midfield, as they were simply bypassed for virtually all of the game, their necks must ache this morning, like watching a space shuttle go over head all the match. The big debate seems to be centring on Cureton and McDonald; who should get the nod, who brings most to the team. Long will it carry on I reckon, being honest with my point of view I don't think either of them are quite what we need at the moment; they both have different attributes they bring to the team. But as we know a striker is always asessed on scoring unless they put the ball in the net they are deemed not good enough (or crap if you like). To be fair to both, on yesterday's showing neither really had much of chance to take, or even create anything; as it wasn't that sort of game.

The loan window opens this week, so perhaps Lambert will have enough money to bring in a couple of fresh faces, hopefully a striker is amongst them, we know he was looking for a speedy winger with his failed bid for McNamee at Swindon, so perhaps Whaley doesn't fit in the plans.  With a couple of days extra break before the next game, gives Lambert a little bit more time to get his man or men before hand.

We believe we had better condition ourselves to see more of the same dished up at Carrow Road, as no team are going to come here and make our lives any easier, the onus will always be on us to break them down and take the play to them,  we do need to have a lot better idea of how to do that over the rest of the season.