Here was the dullest of games with the liveliest of endings, thanks to clangers from each goalkeeper in the last 10 minutes of the match. Joe Hart appeared to have presented Norwich with a share of the points seven minutes from the end when he dropped Robbie Brady’s cross to leave Cameron Jerome the simplest of tap-ins, and he must have been the most relieved man in the stadium when John Ruddy returned the favour five minutes later.
The Norwich keeper came out to claim the ball and stranded himself at the edge of his area, allowing Raheem Sterling a shot at an unguarded net that Russell Martin could only divert with his arm. The Norwich captain received a red card as a result, while Yaya Touré slotted home the penalty to keep his side at the top of the table. Even then there was still time for Hart to redeem himself with a fine save from Martin Olsson that denied a second Canaries comeback, and for Aleksandar Kolarov to miss another penalty with the last kick of the game after Brady had brought down Sterling.
There was plenty to talk about in the end, though it was all packed into those final 10 minutes. Before that Manchester City had been making conspicuously hard work of seeing off a resolute Norwich side, conserving energy for their trip to Sevilla on Tuesday perhaps but displaying a lack of attacking ideas and invention that will encourage their Champions League opponents. Spanish scouts will also have noted below-par performances from Touré and Kevin De Bruyne, and the fact that Wilfried Bony is far from lethal in front of goal. “Norwich defended very well,” Manuel Pellegrini pleaded in mitigation. “They made it very difficult for us to find space.”
Norwich boasted a flat back five and a plan to stay compact behind the ball, which worked for over an hour even if it did invite the home side to camp out on the edge of their area.
Bony three times had chances to open the scoring but found Ruddy equal to his first speculative effort, then he missed the target completely from a better opportunity set up by Kelechi Iheanacho. Having swooped on to the ball and past Sébastien Bassong in one imperious surge the striker seemed to have done all the hard work, only to allow Ruddy and the Norwich goal a reprieve by firing into the crowd. Bony had just put another shot wide from De Bruyne’s pass when Norwich almost scored on the counterattack, Matt Jarvis showing more accuracy than Bony from Brady’s diagonal ball forward and bringing a good save from Hart. While it would have been completely against the run of play Norwich could have put themselves in front before the interval.
City did not have a great deal to show for almost three-quarters of the first half possession. Pellegrini was boasting in the match programme about his side having scored 18 goals in the previous four home games and at half-time he must have been demanding to know where the attacking desire had gone. Early in the second half he made the obvious change, sending on Sterling in place of Iheanacho. The 19-year-old had not looked out of place on his first Premier League start – just prior to his withdrawal he had created an opening for Bony that Bassong had to be alert to snuff out – though between them the front pair were not really giving Norwich too much to think about.
These are the sort of games in which Touré can usually step up to make a difference, though the Ivorian was quiet and when the breakthrough came it was a defender who scored from a set piece. Norwich must have been kicking themselves. De Bruyne swung over a corner in one of his last acts before being substituted and Nicolás Otamendi rose unchallenged to nod firmly past Ruddy from close to the penalty spot for his first league goal for the club.
It all felt a bit anticlimactic really, after all the goals that had rained in during October, though no one had any idea of the drama still to come. “It feels like we chucked away a point,” Alex Neil said when the dust had settled. “We thought it would be naive to go toe-to-toe with City so we set up to defend, we were doing well, and for basic errors from individual players to let us down was extremely frustrating.”
