As supporters spilled out into Carrow Road on Saturday afternoon the arguments were in full swing.  

If there is one thing that football fans are good at it’s finding something to have a row about, even after a spirit lifting 4-1 win.  

Depending on which conversation you overheard it was Marcelino Nunez. Or maybe it was Callum Doyle. No, it was definitely Jose Cordoba but what about Kellen Fisher?  

The fierce debate raged about which Norwich City player should have been named man of the match. There have been other games in recent seasons after which picking the Canaries’ best performer has been a really difficult job. This time it was because there were so many candidates rather than so few.  

The tradition of having to single out one player each week for special praise is a curious one. Especially when, most of the time, discussion centres around the importance of the team above the individual. Choosing who gets the bottle of champagne tends to be a perk of paying to sponsor a game. That’s why the recipient can often be who that person would most like to meet rather than who necessarily performed the best on the day.  

When the team’s won, no-one really worries that much about man of the match and when they lose no-one wants to win it. Being presented with a bottle of bubbly hot on the heels of a 3-0 home defeat provides a real test of judgement. How much is a player allowed to smile in the official photos? You can’t look too happy because of the result but you can’t look too angry for fear of disrespecting the people who have deemed you worthy of an award.  

Happily this wasn’t an issue after the thumping win over Watford. The collection of Canary contenders bodes well for what Johannes Hoff Thorup is trying to achieve.  

The City head coach explains his thinking so openly and clearly when pressed on team selections. His ability to change and tweak a line-up and a formation before and during games to good effect has been a pleasing feature of the opening weeks of the season.  

Few expected Fisher to start at right back against Watford. That’s not so much a slight on him as an endorsement of Jack Stacey who has been involved in all 52 Championship games since he joined Norwich City. Bringing in a 20-year old for just his fourth league start felt like a big call. It was one that David Wagner made three times last season and twice resulted in Stacey being restored at the expense of Fisher at half-time.  

Thorup made the same move but much later in the game on Saturday, once Fisher had done well enough to earn a standing ovation. There was still time for Stacey to come on to keep up his 100pc league appearance record and set up Ben Chrisene for the fourth goal. With Doyle having opened the scoring two left backs netting for Norwich in the same game might have been a first.  

If this is what ‘Hoffball’ is going to be like then Carrow Road is well and truly converted. Not since ‘Farkeball’ has the place been purring quite as much as it was at full-time on Saturday. Neither ‘Smithball’ or ‘Wagnerball’ ever full caught the imagination.  

I’m not sure when the trend of calling a style of play ‘managerball’ started. I just wish it had been around in the 1990s when Alan Ball was managing in the Premier League. Would his preferred style have been called ‘Alanball’ or ‘Ballball’? I guess we’ll never know.  

Still it’s comforting that idle thoughts like that and the relative merits of the man of the match adjudicators dominated discussions on the way home on Saturday.  

The early kick-off made a pleasant late summer stroll back into the city after the game. If such trivial matters are all that’s being argued about on those dark winter nights that lie ahead then ‘Hoffball’ really will be working.  

 

Toto time... 

Some celebrity deaths hit you harder than others.  

As a 42-year-old football supporter news of the passing of Salvatore ‘Toto’ Schillaci was one that brought back so many happy memories.  

To save you the maths, I was eight-years old during Italia ’90. The perfect age to have an imagination captured by Gazza crying, David Platt’s volley and Schillaci’s Midas month. Winning the Golden Boot in a home World Cup. It’s no wonder his career petered out after that. How could it possibly be topped? 

It turns out that ‘Toto’ may also hold another record: the shortest ever Carrow Road career.  

I had a mirky memory that he had come on as a substitute for Inter Milan in the UEFA Cup tie in 1993 (11 years old then, still impressionable). As it was before the digital age it was difficult to find a record of the full line-ups, including subs and when they were used online.  

So I found a recording of the entire match on YouTube. No, I didn’t watch it all. Life at 42 is too busy for that. A quick scroll through revealed Schillaci did indeed come on as a late sub. He enters the pitch in a bit of hurry as a replacement for an injured team-mate. The camera follows Toto as he jogs onto the pitch, gets close to the centre circle and crouches down to tie his laces up. Bryan Gunn then hammers a goal kick as far up the pitch as he can. At which point the final whistle blows. Schillaci is on the pitch for about 13 seconds but if you were there you can say you saw him play.  

He didn’t touch the ball but it was probably enough for a win bonus.