Norwich City 4-1 Burnley: Mo Goals Mo Problems
And breathe. What a weekend. Carrow Road played host to one of many high-scoring Championship games this weekend, as relegated Burnley travelled to Norwich with both sides in search of a first league win of the season. Norwich are looking to finally put an end to their five-season stay in the second tier, their longest run without a promotion in recent memory, while Burnley are after a fifth consecutive automatic promotion from this division. Both clubs are helmed by a Belgian, as is the fashion these days, but neither have quite yet shown signs that they might equal the points haul of their countryman Vincent Kompany’s Burnley reign. Enough waffling about Belgians, let’s get into the action.
These clubs were two of the Championship’s pre-season promotion favourites coming into the campaign. Philippe Clement has had Norwich positively purring since his appointment following their disastrous start to last season, and their form to end the season has rightly attracted the attention of bookies and punters alike. It also just feels like it’s about time we had Norwich back in the Premier League again. There’s no science to that, but you know it’s true.
His opposite number Nicky Hayen is the latest man to throw himself head-first into the Burnley Football Club managerial meat grinder. Get promoted with ~100 points, refuse to build a team capable of competing in the Premier League, finish bottom, repeat. If you’re lucky you might even end up with the Bayern Munich job for your troubles. I’m still half expecting Scott Parker to take over at Barcelona any minute now. They were tipped for promotion essentially on reputation alone, despite being clearly the weakest of the relegated sides and the division being stronger than it ever has been. The reality is that this is a fairly poor, in comparison to their recent Championship stints, Burnley squad with limited experience and quality in key areas. They have enough talent to win games, and may even end up back in the Premier League after all, but I think it’s more likely that they spend the season enthralled in a battle for the final couple of play-off spots and, ultimately, just miss out. Burnley fans, you’d better get comfy in the Championship for a change.
A key characteristic of Clement’s Norwich side has been their youthful exuberance. He’s built a team of extremely capable young players with buckets of energy that can press the life out of the opposition and run hard for the full 90. Something about the bright yellow kits makes it look like they’re moving even faster than they are, too. The biggest success story of his short era as Norwich manager has to be Mo Touré. The 22 year-old was plucked from the Danish league, where he had a relatively okay goalscoring record without pulling up any trees, and has been converted into the Championships premier attacking threat. He’s quick, powerful, a great dribbler and a fantastic finisher. The complete package. A brace this weekend against Burnley takes his Championship record to 11 goals and 3 assists in 14 games. If Norwich miss out on promotion this year, you’d think that Touré would end up making the step up regardless.
His first came in just the second minute, Anel Ahmedhodzic having a nightmare on his return to the Championship as he swung a leg at a speculative Jose Cordoba through-ball and missed, allowing Touré to pounce and finish with his trademark confidence to give Norwich the lead. Great strikers gamble on every ball, and it paid off this time for Touré. 1-0 Norwich and anyone left buying a last-minute hot dog or gulping down the remains of their £7 pint would’ve missed it.
Not to worry, as their second goal came just a few minutes later to make it 2-0 before they’d even played 5 minutes. Canaries winger Anthony Musaba wriggled free of his defender into space down the left to receive the ball, and was able to pick out a cross into the box. He fired it low into the centre where he found Norwich’s big summer signing Andre Brooks waiting. Brooks managed to get goal side of his marker and get a foot to the cross, diverting it beyond the ‘keeper to give his new side a commanding lead. Two goals down and floundering, it was already looking like an insurmountable lead for Burnley even at such an early stage.
It was 3-0 by minute 21, and all hope truly was lost at that point for the visitors. To drive the stake even deeper into their hearts, it came from some calamitous defending on their part. A Norwich corner was met by Burnley midfielder Hannibal, who was tasked with marking Mo Touré and did well to beat him to the ball on that occasion. It deflected off of Mejbri towards Kyle Walker, who just couldn’t sort his feet out as the ball bounced off of him and back towards Mejbri and Touré. Unfortunately for Burnley, Mejbri had presumed that Walker would deal with it and had begun to make strides towards starting a counter attack, leaving Touré with a few yards of room in the box to bury his shot and bury Burnley’s chances.
Their was a flicker of hope for the Clarets as Josh Laurent scored just six minutes later to cut the deficit back down to two goals. He lined up a shot from range and placed it beautifully into the bottom corner, giving the ‘keeper no hope. Another tragic case of a lovely goal that will be lost to the annals of time as it came as a consolation in a humiliating loss. Somehow, they managed to go on to play a further 40 minutes without another goal, Jacob Brunn-Larsen coming closest as he rattled the post with a great individual effort. Had that gone in, we would’ve had a very interesting end to this game.
Alas, it wasn’t to be, and it wasn’t long before Brooks’ second goal put the cherry atop the icing on a big, yellow Norwich City FC official branded cake. Substitute Papa Diallo drove them forward with a surging run through the middle of the park, sliding a pass out to his right to a wide-open Jack Stacey. Stacey fired in yet another low cross towards Brooks, who applied the cheekiest of back-heel flicks to caress the ball in at the near post. Sublime.
It was a goal that was emblematic of a team brimming with confidence in their manager and in each other. They’re a young side with some speckles of experience and heaps of quality, and they’re a joy to watch. Had it not been for the horrific handball decision against them in the opening weekend, they might be sat a little prettier. Millwall gave them a lesson last weekend, and that would’ve set off some alarm bells, but getting turned over with 10 men away from home against the team who finished third last time out isn’t cause for a full-blown crisis. I’d be amazed if Norwich weren’t in the top 8 come May, and I wouldn’t be all that surprised if they’re in the conversation for the top 2 once the season really gets going.
As for their opposition, it’s really hard to get a gauge on how their season might go. They’ve faced stern tests against West Ham, West Brom, and now Norwich, but if you’re a team with genuine promotion ambitions you need to be taking more than 1 point from that run in. That point came courtesy of a Zian Flemming one-man rescue mission and, with rumours of a return to the top flight swirling, it looks like they might be about to lose their best player on deadline day to top off a summer that has seen a mixed bag of arrivals welcomed with varying degrees of excitement. Their goalscorer today, Josh Laurent, managed to get himself sent off towards the end of the game for a silly second yellow card to top off a dreadful day out for the Burnley fans, leaving them with nobody available to play the next game that’s actually scored a goal for them this season (presuming Flemming leaves the sinking ship as expected). I want to like this Burnley team, and recent history suggests they will somehow find a way to achieve promotion once again, but I just can’t see it with this current crop of players. With so many teams making huge leaps forward this summer, someone has to fall behind.