Norwood the red, sees red
Oliver Norwood and Sam Johnstone both played in Scunthorpe’s unlucky 3-2 defeat at Notts County. Johnstone reclaimed the number one jersey from Sam Slocombe after losing his place due to a dislocated finger but the 18 year-old did well with a string of saves from County forwards and could do nothing with the goals.
Northern Ireland midfielder Norwood was harshly sent off for a challenge on Jeff Hughes while Johnstone made one wonder stop to deny Ben Burgess and will therefore miss the next three games. However Iron manager Alan Knill will appeal the ban believes the decision cost his side the three points. He said: “I think we’d have won it comfortably with 11 men. We were by far the best team and in the ascendancy.
“We had Andy Barcham sent off for doing absolutely nothing, we appealed it and got nothing,” said the Iron boss, when asked if his club would appeal.
“But we’ll have another look. When it happened, I went ‘great tackle’. But that’s the climate. The game has become so soft.
“Tackling isn’t allowed any more. We ask people to be aggressive in the right manner and in my mind, that was being aggressive in the right manner.
“All of a sudden there was a melee and the referee brought out the red card.
“I’m all for protecting talented players, but there has to be some physicality for the game to be exciting.
“If it’s a terrible tackle, usually the player doesn’t get up, run around and carry on.
“Once Oli gets sent off the lad gets up, continues and plays the rest of the game.”
As suggested last week after Marc Tierney’s horror show against Theo Walcott, Ritchie De Laet, fit again after a back problem, was back in the Norwich side and helped the Canaries to a 2-1 victory against QPR. The Belgian, who returned to training last week, played for 59 minutes of the Canaries’ triumph, leaving the field seconds before Luke Young equalised for Rangers. He put in a decent shift up against Shaun Wright-Phillips and showed good judgement when going in for challenges against the tricky winger.
Danny Drinkwater replaced goalscorer Ricardo Vaz Te for the final 25 minutes as 10-man Barnsley won at Elland Road for the first time since 1990. Drinkwater was brought on to shore up the midfield as the match opened up as Leeds looked for ab equaliser. The visitors went ahead when Jim O’Brien squared for Ricardo Vaz Te, whose scuffed shot looped in. It was 2-0 when Jacob Butterfield’s strike was pushed by Alex McCarthy into the path of Craig Davies, who finished. Leeds’ Ross McCormack fired in a 25-yard free-kick.
Robbie Brady has reacted well to being dropped and has been back in the Hull side despite being deployed in a different role to his usual flank position in Hull City’s defeat to Burnley. The Irish youngster was part of a three-man strikeforce as the Tigers surrendered a two-goal lead against the Clarets. The Dubliner forced one good save out of Lee Grant as he and former Red Cameron Stewart supported Matty Fryatt.
Ryan Tunnicliffe came off the bench for Peterborough in their creditable 1-1 draw with Middlesbrough at London Road. The young midfielder replaced Lee Frecklington on 54 minutes, moments after Matthew Bates’ opener and helped the Posh retrieve a point.
While our man in Germany, Joshua King, did not feature for Borussia Monchengladbach as the Bundesliga side continue their red-hot form by winning 3-0 at Cologne.
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