The Paul Green blog
Tuesday 18 November 2008
Jordan’s screamer came out of the blue!
We scored three cracking goals in the victory over Sheffield Wednesday but Jordan Stewart’s screamer was the pick of the bunch.
As soon as he struck the ball I thought “that’s in.” The Wednesday goalkeeper had no chance.
I’m not sure where such a strike came from because we don’t see shooting like that from Jordan in training. He’s always gets the ball and says “watch this, top corner,” but the shot flies miles over.
There has only been one problem with him scoring such a great goal – he hasn’t stop talking about it since.
We were a bit slow out of the traps against Wednesday but after that I thought we bossed the game all over the pitch. It was the best we have played this season, although I thought our performances in the win at QPR and the home victory over Norwich were also good.
Kris Commons’ finish for the first goal against Wednesday was excellent. He scored quite a few for Nottingham Forest last season and has been getting into some good positions for us. He is capable of scoring goals.
And Miles Addison finally got his first goal for the club.
He has deserved to get on the scoresheet because he’s been unlucky in games, especially the Forest match, when he had two goals disallowed.
You could see what the goal against Wednesday meant to Miles. I don’t think he knew what to do when it went in, so he just kept running. He’ll have to sort out his goal celebration.
We’re on a good run at the moment and only Reading have beaten us comfortably. I said there was no reason for us to get too down after that result and we hit back by beating Leeds in the Carling Cup.
I thought the performance against Leeds showed we have plenty of character and determination and that we are hard to beat.
We set off really well and went two up but Leeds enjoyed all the possession and pulled a goal back. We had to dig in and Leeds will not play better this season without winning.
But for all their possession, they did not have many efforts on goal and Roy Carroll was only called on to make one very good save to keep the score at 2-1.
Young Leeds midfielder Fabian Delph earned rave reviews for his display and I was impressed with him.
For an 18-year-old – he turns 19 this week – he got on the ball and showed great composure. He makes space for himself, passes it well and looks a clever footballer. It is easy to see why people are talking about him and clubs are reportedly looking at him.
The win put us into the quarter-finals and I wasn’t aware that we had drawn Stoke City away until I got to the ground before Saturday’s game against Wednesday.
Stoke are tough opponents at the Britannia Stadium and we’ll have to get our tin hats on!
Rory Delap’s long throws have made the news all season and in some ways you’d rather put the ball out for a corner than a throw-in.
Stoke play to their strengths and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. It is working well for them in the Premier League and they have chalked up home wins against Aston Villa, Tottenham, Sunderland and Arsenal. Twelve of their 14 points have come at home.
It will be a tough test but at the same time it is also a good draw. Stoke is not too far down the road and I’m sure we’ll be backed by a big following of our fans.
It’s great to be in the last eight of the Carling Cup but we have important league games to focus on first.
On a final note, the lads enjoyed an early Christmas party in London on Saturday night. It wasn’t fancy dress, though it could have been looking at the fancy clothes worn by some of the lads!