Norwich City 3 - 0 Yeovil Town, March 6th 2010
Most Canary fans will tell you that Norwich weren’t completely at their best during February. However, after remaining top of League One during this time, Saturday’s 3-0 victory over Yeovil indicated that Paul Lambert’s men are ready to hit top form once again.
The results in February weren’t too bad anyway. Let’s get that straight. It started with a defeat at Millwall, picked up with a victory at Brighton, hit another setback with a rare home defeat to Southampton and then finished with back to back victories against Southend and Oldham.
By recent standards it wasn’t an incredible month, but plenty of points were still picked up and come the end of it, the Canaries were still in a fantastic position. The performances weren’t quite up to the standard though and I guess that is the reason the Yeovil game was so refreshing.
By all accounts, Norwich played some decent football against Oldham in the previous game, but against Terry Skiverton’s team at Carrow Road on Saturday, they took it up a notch. There was free-flowing football, confidence amongst the players and in truth, a complete inevitability about the victory.
Fair enough Yeovil weren’t exactly the most ambitious side in the world, but Norwich played some excellent stuff at times. As soon as Wes Hoolahan opened the scoring early on it was game over. Grant Holt should have sealed things before half-time, but he eventually got the goal his performance deserved.
Chris Martin then rounded off the scoring with a goal that should help his slightly dented confidence. In fact, each man who grabbed a goal on Saturday will see it as a mini turning point in the season.
Hoolahan scored for the first time since Boxing Day, Holt put in his best performance since returning from suspension and Martin got himself on the score sheet after a couple of home games where he had received some stick from the home crowd.
During February there were one or two below par performances from Norwich and this was largely down to the fact that Hoolahan, Holt and Martin suffered a slight dip in form at the same time.
If the Yeovil game is anything to go by, the ‘Holy Trinity’ as some are calling them could be returning to form at exactly the same time too and with three tough games coming up – trips to Huddersfield and Swindon are followed by a crunch home game with Leeds – the timing couldn’t be better.
Bring it on.
