YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING- FFC2 NCFC2

A chant that the Whites' faithful have used too many times of late, but "the bloke in the black" last night was a disgrace. Yes, as loyal FFC fan I am biased, but even with my most objective head on, last night, the referee clearly did not have a clue. As a cynic, I would say it is the old story of the ref favouring the more fancied teams. But all of this should not take anything away from what was an excellent match, and probably the best FFC performance for a while. 
Norwich are a very good team with some experienced players, but they did not overwhelm us too much in the first half. Neil's team, clearly, came to win the game, and with the help of the ref they should have seen out a two goal half time lead. Apart from two glancing headers, where players were left unmarked, Button's goal was not really threatened. Ream nullified Cameron Jerome, who was either having an off day, or he was expertly isolated by our defence. In fact, the first half was fairly even, on the balance of play, but a soft penalty conceded by Malone gave them the lead. From the ref's position it looked like a pen. but contact was minimal, even though it was a penalty. The second penalty was a joke, as the Norwich player was attempting a diving header and Malone hardly touched him. If penalties are given for that then we will soon see scores of 10-10 every week. 2-0 down and it seemed there was no way back. As for FFC, Aluko looked much more effective in the first half, playing wide on the right. On this form, if he can keep it up for 90 minutes, he is going to cause weaker teams a lot of problems. 
Whatever Slavisa said at half time, we came flying out of the blocks, pressing Norwich high up and fighting for every ball. It wasn't long before Martin shot from about 15 yards, and although it was going wide, Johansen deflected it in, even though he did not know much about it. That small slice of luck, gave us confidence, and it wasn't long before Martin showed that he is a good box striker, firing past the keeper for 2-2. After that, we sat back a bit, maybe out of caution or maybe out of the tiredness of two matches in 4 days. But apart from one long shot that Button saved, it was FFC who looked more likely in the closing minutes. Then, the ref totally lost the plot. The Norwich no.3 fouled Martin by the corner flag, and then proceeded to block him off. The linesman saw this, but the ref was more interested in booking one of our players and totally ignoring the antics of their no.3 who continued arguing and refusing to retreat from the ball. For, me this incident summed up the ref's poor performance more than anything. But, overall it was probably a fair result, and shows that we can live with any team in this league. We are starting to look much more of a team, and I believe that come Christmas Slavisa's plans will reach fruition on a regular basis. 

Martin shooting for goal.

MOM- Martin for his sheer work rate, or the ever improving Piazon.

Next up is Villa and we can get a result there, but let's hope that McContract doesn't read the script and forgets to score against a former club.

IN SLAVISA WE TRUST
COYWs

Our facebook group- https://www.facebook.com/groups/FFC.Ambition/?ref=bookmarks

© Nic Smith