A few words about a couple of matches from earlier in the week before I start with this week’s quiz. On Monday, City’s under 21s travelled west to Swansea to face the jacks and they returned with a 1-0 win that rather reinforces the impression they’ve given already – that is. they are one of our strongest sides at this level in recent years and serious candidates for a top two finish and the Play Off place that goes with it.
The match wasn’t streamed live, so all I’ve seen are the highlights on the club website. Now, such places, naturally, tend to favour their own team when putting a highlights package together, but, based on what I’ve seen, we could easily have scored more than once as we created quite a few decent scoring opportunities.
The goal came just before half time when Dakarai Mafico picked out a lovely pass to Trey George and his low cross from the left was knocked in from about eight yards out by Michael Reindorf.
Scoring against the jacks at any level gives the City player concerned the backing of fans and, given Reindorf’s performances against Bristol Rovers and Southampton in the League Cup earlier in the season, the number of calls for him to feature in the squad for the upcoming game with his former club Norwich has grown (and there were plenty backing him before he scored on Monday).
However, there are those who watch more age group matches than I do who argue that Reindorf is still too raw for Championship football. For myself, there is evidence to suggest that the senior player who is Callum Robinson’s back up currently and comes on to replace him in most league games is not good enough for Championship football at the moment, so I’d prefer to see someone who is young and ambitious to show what he can do off the bench as opposed to the back up striker we have at the moment.
It’s a similar situation on the wing, Cian Ashford played the whole game on Monday I believe, so he should be available for selection on Saturday – I just hope he makes it on to the bench this time because, again, it seems to me that he has more to offer than the player who has come on to replace the likes of Ollie Tanner in recent matches.
Twenty four hours after the under 21s won their derby, Wales’ women’s team made it through to a two leg Play Off with the Republic of Ireland with the prize for the winner being a place in the Finals of the Euros to be held in Switzerland next summer.
In front of a 10.000 plus crowd at Cardiff Coty Stadium, Wales were as dominant as Slovakia had been in fashioning a 2-1 win for themselves in a First Leg where the home team should really have won by at least a two goal margin.
Wales were still overly reliant on Jess Fishlock who scored a first half goal to level the tie and had two more, rightly, disallowed for offside in the second period. Fishlock didn’t look that fit to me after her recent injury, but she lasted the full one hundred and twenty minutes.
Although others within the team played a lot better than they did in the away leg, Wales couldn’t cash in on a string of good chances they had in the second half in particular and so it went to extra time. A penalty shoot out looked like the most likely outcome through an extra thirty minutes in which Wales mostly looked like a team that had little left to give after playing so intensely during normal time.
However, midway through the second period of extra time, Ceri Holland, selected as the Player of the Match, came up with a winner which was, firstly, disallowed for another offside and then given by VAR after what seemed a very long delay.
Wales went to the Republic of Ireland and won 2-0 in February, so, maybe this is going to be the time when the women reach their first major Finals, but I can’t help thinking that they’ll miss out if the standard shown over the two legs against Slovakia is repeated when the teams meet next month .
Anyway, here’s the seven Norwich related questions for the usual quiz, I’ll post the anmswers on here on Sunday.
60s. With a surname that probably puts you more in mind of an 80’s fashion statement than fish, this Midland’s born defender played three First Division matches for a team that you might think were suffering from the effects of very cold weather before signing for Norwich where he stayed for just short of a decade with most of it being as a first team regular. A regular opponent of City during this time, he got a close look at a famous goal that was scored in the fixture and also scored himself in another game against us. After leaving Norwich, he played non league football in the area for Linnets, Trawler Boys and Bloaters, but who is he?
70s. The Norwich team for one of City’s visits to Carrow Road during this decade contained three players who would later play for us and they had another future City man on their books at the time who didn’t feature that day. Can you name the four players?
80s. Bathed managers and somehow kept the goals out! (6,8)
90s. Was he a servant before he came a footballer?
00s. Name the striker, with a better than a goal every other game scoring record for England over a five year period when he was a regular selection, who got sent off at Walsall while playing for Norwich in this decade.
10s. He played for City against Norwich in the penultimate game of Ole Gunnar Solksjaer’s spell as City manager and is currently first team coach of a team he made a total of three hundred and fifty nine league appearances for. Who is he?
20s. His first name means a dweller near a tree lined meadow – in his case it might be close to a Boat Race bridge as well, who is he?
