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This Saturday Villa make the long trip east to face a struggling Norwich City side. If the game pans out anything like the home fixture did then Villa fans are in for a treat.
For this weeks opposition’s view I’ve enlisted the services of Adrian Richmond (@Adeotbc).
Adrian has been supporting Norwich City through good and bad for the last 52 years. At present, he lives in Worthing and up to 3 years ago and is still a season ticket holder but manages to see a few of the local games and recently travelled down to see them against Bolton, 0-0 at home one of the most mediocre games he’s seen . In all the time he’s supported Norwich Adrian has never had the desire to buy any NCFC gear for himself . On special occasions he does bring out a knitted scarf which he’s had for the past 50 years. Adrian’s eldest and youngest sons are both ardent supporters as well and he’s spent plenty of money buying them various kits. 5 years ago my Adrian’s son got married at NCFC, despite him also living in Worthing.
How would you rate your season so far out of ten and why?
I would rate it only 4 out of ten, season has been uneventful at best and boring at worst, other supporters are calling it a work in progress , however I can’t see any progress.
Daniel Farke, a good long term appointment or a manager not cut out for the Championship?
It seems like he can do no wrong with most supporters who are prepared to wait until next year, but then when you look where we are now, we’ve got nothing to look forward too now, so they’re just being pragmatic. At beginning of season priority was to get promoted, that priority has now changed and the target is now to finish above Ipswich, don’t think we’ll achieve that either. I don’t think he’s cut out for this level, he makes strange selections, when we start losing he has failed to make a tactical substitution to turn it around. Our style of play is too predictable and most managers have worked it out. We’ve been beaten by teams who are doing worse than us.
Norwich City are the fourth lowest scorers in the Championship, why do you think this is?
Since we lost Grant Holt we’ve always been short of a goal scorer, and have failed to replace him during the last 4 transfer windows, In January we dumped Jerome and failed to replace him, Nelson Oliviera has got attitude problems and if it wasn’t for Maddison we would struggle even more, but now opposition has got wise to him and he’s being kept out of the game.
Which City players should Villa be wary of?
At the moment, no one. Maddison is losing it , Murphy overrates himself and only wants to score spectacular goals, our defence is also leaking stupid goals. Just watch we’ll play possession football most of the 1st half, opposition will get possession and go for jugular and probably score, then Farke doesn’t have a plan B.
If you could, which past Canaries player would you bring into the starting XI?
Grant Holt, good old fashion centre forward, who knew where the goal was and wasn’t afraid to go for it. Duncan Forbes, superb centre half and a team leader, who controlled his team, you knew who was in charge, now you never see or hear our captain, Pinto by the way, barking out orders and pushing team forward.
If you were Daniel Farke and had to sign one Aston Villa player for Norwich, who would it be?
Sorry don’t know your team well enough to pick one, but would take back Bruce anytime, because he was a fantastic player for us.
If you were stuck on a desert island with one other Canaries player, who would it be?
My son thinks I’m obsessed with Grant Holt, but over 50 years I’ve got a lot to choose from so I’m going to choose our keeper Kevin Keelan, saw him play so many times, played over 600 games for us. As a young lad he was one of my heroes, I’ve met a lot of our players since but have never met him. I dare say if I met him I would be so in awe of him I probably would just stare at him, mouth wide open and tongue tied. He currently lives in America but I’ve made my bucket list to include if he ever comes back to the club for any reason I will be there.
Score prediction for Saturday?
At the start of every game I believe that we will win it, we’re the home team, we’ve got nothing to lose, fans want us to play decent football to give them something to cheer them up, my heart says we will win, but unfortunately my head says we will lose again
There you go that’s it, Norwich City supporters will see this and reckon I’m just being negative and they would prefer it if I kept my thoughts to myself, however I’m not negative, it’s just that at the moment I see nothing to be positive about, I think I’m just being realistic,
As I said at the start I’ve supported my team over 50 years, and every week, when we play I want to know how we’re doing no matter where in the world we might be.
I’ve supported the team all this time and regardless of result on Saturday I will continue to support them and look forward to the next game.
Words by Harry Trend (@HazaTrand) // Follow us on Twitter (@claretandview)
