Canary Talk - Miss of the Match Award

It has been a week since the first home game, but I am still having nightmares about those chances in the first half that went begging. In an attempt to stay sane, whatever that may mean for someone of my age, I have devised a competition in which I, as the only entrant, have to put the misses in order, thereby arriving at the worst miss. The non-scorer is then invited to accept a 'Miss of the Match' award!

Here are the results for the Blackpool game, in reverse order. In fourth place, Curo's snap shot which hit the bar. Third was Curo's attempt to beat the keeper in a one on one, which turned out to be a pass to Arturo, who made it into second place by spurning the apparently simple opportunity to tap the ball into empty goal.

The 'Miss of the Match' award has to go to Wes Hoolahan, because when Curo's shot came back off the bar it fell to our Wes, inside the six-yard box, with the goal at his mercy, but his left-foot volley cleared the bar and ended up at the back of the lower Barclay!

Yes, I know Wes picked up the 'Man of the Match' award, but it is possible to win both awards for the same game. Just as it was possible for John Kennedy to put in a solid performance, but take the shine off it by giving away the ball in the build up to the penalty, awarded against Elliott Omozusi for a quite unnecessary challenge on Andy Hammill.

This highlights the problem of missed chances, because by the time Ben Burgess tucked away the spot kick to give the Seasiders a surprise lead, the Canaries should have been coasting to victory with at least three goals on the scoreboard. Fortunately, our in-form marksman, Darel Russell came on as substitute and rescued a point with a close range header. The only surprise was that Rusty had not been included in the starting line-up.

The one thing on which there seems to be general agreement is that the performances against Coventry and Blackpool were good enough to have netted maximum points, had the finishing touch been applied.

Now it's off to Cardiff for Canary fans, where they are likely to experience another kind of miss, because we all have fond memories of the two goals scored by Ched Evans on the last visit to Ninian Park; and this will serve as yet another reminder that we desperately require the services of a proven goal-scorer to lead the attack; unless, of course, Glenn Roeder has got his man while I have been dreaming up daft awards for those who fail to score...