A Penney For Your Thoughts

Norwich City 2-0 Oldham Athletic

There was many a wise old sage at Carrow Road before this one who saw it as their job to calm things down a little.

With City in such good form and Oldham struggling and decimated by injury problems it wasn't difficult to find home supporters predicting 4-0 or 5-1 wins. 'Expectation levels are getting too high' was the headmasterly warning from the more sobre, weather-beaten fans with some even pointing to the pressure a promotion push could pile on the team. I don't think it's a bad thing.

It is understandable that football managers and players will talk about there being 'no easy games' and that the 'opposition will make it difficult for us' because any bullish pre-match predictions leave them open to much egg on face. Fans don't have to worry quite so much.

Surely it is a good thing that supporters are turning up and see a win by a four goal margin as realistic. It means the team must be doing something right and as for the pressure, well, this kind of 'promotion battle' pressure is infinitely preferable to the relegation worried of previous years.

Oldham were beaten by first half strikes from Holt and Hoolahan. Their manager Dave Penney came up with a novel way of avoiding the glare during the game by appearing on the touchline in a tracksuit top bearing the initials 'LD'. I have never quite understood why being a manager entitles you to wearing your initials on your chest but they all do it.

While football supporters can be a demanding bunch they are are also a breed that few can match when it comes to pessimism.

Things have been going very well for Nowich lately, dare I say too well. There's an unspoken inner fear around Carrow Road, with its roots in the let-downs of recent years, which says 'somethings going to go wrong soon'.

This feeling was exposed when Great British professional football's top goal scorer so far this season, Grant Holt, hit the deck like a big old sack of spuds after a shin high challenge. The communal intake of breath at Carrow Road spoke volumes. 'That's it, he's out for the season.' You could almost hear people thinking it. Gradually Holt clambered back into a vertical, if unsteady, state and couldn't join in with the next two attacks as he hobbled around the halfway line.

Holt completed the game though and when I asked him about the challenge afterwards he replied: "The shin pad did its job."

That's the trouble with scoring 19 goals by early December. It makes people want to kick you.