Yeah good performance and we deserved the 2-0 win. Though it does have to be said Birmingham are a very poor side and it's not hard to see why they're bottom of the league. Their tactics literally seemed to be shoot on sight, as every time they got within 30 yards of our goal they'd just let fly without even thinking about trying to move the ball forward, and the result was 18 shots but just 2 on target. They made our attacking performance against Brentford look as if we were Manchester City
We played well today. Up until we scored we weren't amazing but unlike recent weeks I felt like we had the quality to break them down at some point, which of course we did (although to be fair some of that will be down to the opposition). After that we controlled the game which was good to see. Even at 1-0 we looked relatively comfortable but to get a 2nd and kill the game which we don't tend to do made a nice change.
Pritchard and Maddison both immense, and actually looked like they had set roles. Pritchard was the main architect and responsible for doing the 'heavy lifting' in attacking areas, with Maddison's main job to try and move us up the pitch and get the ball to Pritchard when he could, before taking up a threatening position himself. It makes a change as most of the season Maddison has been tasked with being our main creative outlet, but now with Pritchard back his role has changed slightly and I think it's made us better for it (or at least it did today). Pritchard is brilliant though, great finish for the goal and a lovely pass for the 2nd. Josh Murphy was better today. Still pulled out of a couple of challenges and had the odd moment where I wondered what he was trying to do, but in general he was improved. He worked hard defensively as well which was good to see, and took his goal very nicely. Tettey and Trybull certainly add some solidity in our midfield, so great to have them back. As for Jamal Lewis, I was really impressed. Very composed on the ball and did a really good job defensively up against Jota. Suddenly we seem to have plenty of left back options, which many including myself said was our weakest position at the beginning of the season, with Lewis returning from injury, Stiepermann doing a decent job here so far, and Husband having improved a fair bit since that Millwall game. One thing I would say which really frustrated me today, was Zimmermann's and particularly Klose's passing was absolutely shocking, and against a better side I think we would've been punished. The amount of simple passes Klose completely got wrong was far far too many.
Have to make this win count now. Burton seemed to play well today against Leeds however they still lost so that makes him 8 straight losses for them at home. We can't afford to do the typical Norwich thing and allow them to break that run. We need to build on this, and to be honest can't afford to get less than 6 points from these next 2 games. It's the perfect start today though.
