WES SO ‘CRUCIAL’ AS CANARIES FLY
Neil hails creative genius of Hoolahan
NORWICH returned to the top of the Championship with a convincing victory over relegations strugglers Rotherham, extending their impressive unbeaten league home run to six games.
Wes Hoolahan played a starring role for the hosts, opening the scoring and setting up Cameron Jerome for his goal, before Steven Naismith scored late on to secure the result after Dexter Blackstock made it 2-1 with 15 minutes remaining.
Alex Neil has seen his side recover from September’s late loss against Newcastle and despite being wasteful at times pointed out the performance of Hoolahan as a decisive factor in securing the three points.
“Wes is a crucial player for us, it really is as simple as that,” Neil began. “This performance isn’t uncommon for Wes, and is something we’ve come to expect from him, and that speaks volumes of him and how highly we regard him. He’s got a lot of quality and he can really make a difference for us.
“I thought our performance was very good and we could have been three up at half-time. I thought we were quite wasteful in the first-half in terms of the chances we created, and then we wanted the response after half-time to put the game to bed.”
The Canaries struggled to find the killer pass in the opposition’s final third early on in the game. A chance finally came for Hoolahan, but Rotherham centre-back Dominic Ball was on hand to block on the line.
Minutes later and Ball’s defensive partner, Dael Fry, was putting his right foot through Jerome’s close-range effort as the Norwich attack continued to threaten and waste opportunities in tandem.
The breakthrough for Norwich followed soon after though as Pritchard found Hoolahan, who twisted and turned inside the box, leaving Lee Camp and Fry on the turf and an empty corner to place the ball in to.
Norwich spurned a host of chances before doubling their lead through Jerome. The striker wasted a number of opportunities before getting a strong enough touch on Hoolahan’s cross to take it past Camp.
Timm Klose had the chance to put the game further out of sight when another perfect Hoolahan cross found the wandering centre-back, but he failed to complete the move, instead heading wide.
The hosts were made to rue that and other misses shortly after, with Darnell Fisher’s left wing cross being met by substitute Blackstock at the near post.
Any worries of a comeback were extinguished late on as Josh Murphy picked out Naismith unmarked at the back post to condemn Alan Stubbs’ side to their fifth straight league defeat.
But Stubbs is certain their hard work in games will eventually pay off.
“I don’t think we can argue that Norwich deserved to win, but by getting our goal we’ve seen edginess come into their play and at 2-1 you just never know,” Stubbs said.
“We have to keep believing, keep putting performances in and working hard. The easiest thing is to accept something, not just in football but any walk of life.
“It’s easy for someone to do that. The hardest thing is to do something about it and I see a group of players who are trying their best to do something about it, and as long as they keeping doing that I can’t knock them.”