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Date: 14/04/2012		Venue: Carrow Road
Attendance: 26,812		Referee: Chris Foy

The first of two big home matches in succession saw Man City arrive at Carrow Road needing a win to put some pressure on Man United at the top of the table.  The next visitors are Liverpool, so not too much pressure there.  City, after their win at Spurs are technically safe – although Mathematically they aren’t.

The game was certainly a story of two periods within each half.  For the first 15 minutes, Norwich were the better side.  City were pinned into their own half and a succession of bodies were thrown in front of shots.  It was interesting though that Norwich were never really getting close enough to the Manchester goal to cause any real threat.  It was interesting to see Manchester’s commitment to the defensive cause during this period.  It isn’t something you usually associate with them.  Gradually, though, Manchester started to spring some counter attacks, and two close penalty appeals in the Norwich area were waved away by the ref, even booking Tevez for diving in the process.  But it was no surprise when City took the lead.  A mistake by Elliot Ward gifted the ball to Manchester City, and Tevez slammed the ball home from 25 yards.  At the time of writing it looked like Ruddy’s error but I have yet to see it again on telly.  The second goal was absolutely gorgeous.  A back heel on the edge of the area set up Aguero who hammered the ball into the top left corner.  Norwich hardly got a look in for the rest of the first half.

The second half began with two substitutions.  Hoolahan came on for the ineffectual Bradley Johnson and Surman for Wilbraham.  Norwich immediately became a much more effective force and pulled one back through Surman.  Again, for the first ten minutes of the half it was Norwich domination and determined defending from City.  But City adjusted for Norwich’s new formation and then bought on Yaya Toure who I was surprised hadn’t been on for the start.  The man is a physical specimen and he immediately made a huge difference with City scoring three in quick succession.  Even then they weren’t finished and in the last five minutes hit the cross bar and the post before Johnson scored a cracking team goal.

The result was rather strange.  Norwich had had two extremely good spells but the reality was that City were by FAR the best team to come to Carrow Road this season and could have scored four more easily.