The Championship game between Norwich City and Wycombe Wanderers at Carrow Road on Saturday Aug 22, 2009.
Two games, twelve goals. Paul Lambert seems to have a developed a taste for Carrow Road. The previous time he brought a team here, Colchester humbled the home side 7-1 in a game that cost poor Bryan Gunn his job. On Saturday, sitting in the home dugout, his freshly-minted Norwich side produced a performance every bit as emphatic, gaining a first win of the season in the process. The season, as one Canaries fan remarked with a cheeky wink, starts here.
Barely had Lambert hung up his warm-up suit than the Scot passed withering judgment on the old regime. Six changes were made from the side that lost at Brentford in midweek, and just three players remained from that seven-pronged drubbing. The upshot was a team revived. Norwich played with verve and skill, carving open at will a Wycombe defence led by veteran Michael Duberry. Grant Holt opened the scoring, throwing a speculative right foot at a Simon Lappin free-kick after just 15 minutes.
Eighteen-year-old Korey Smith doubled the lead ten minutes with an almighty right foot shot from 25 yards, and when Jon Otsemobor's looping header kissed the post and tiptoed over the line, Norwich had three goals in 20 dreamy first-half minutes. The clouds over Carrow Road were already beginning to lift.
It fell to Jon-Paul Pittman to prick the yellow bubble. Danish defender Jens Berthel Askou fatally misjudged a long ball, letting it bounce over his head. Pittman reacted quickest and slotted home. It was 3-2 just 28 seconds into the second half when Matt Harrold let fly with a left foot volley from the edge of the area. new era it may be, but Lambert will be all too aware of Norwich's old frailties.
A fourth goal two minutes later killed Wycombe off, Askou ghosting to the near post and connecting with a bullet header, and Holt completed the rout with his second goal. "We want seven," a delirious home crowd chanted.
Lambert, a former Champions League winner with Borussia Dortmund, knew better than to get carried away.
"What I know about big clubs," he said, "is that it's easy to play in front of three or four thousand. When there are 20,000 people, you have to perform week in, week out. I felt I had to make changes to get a bit of freshness into the side." Peter Taylor, on the other hand, was seething after seeing Wycombe slip into the bottom four. "The first four goals were all from set pieces," he said.
"We've had a difficult start, but that doesn't give us any excuse."
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