Do you know the way to San Jose?

"the mexicans attempt to get one up on the opposition by making them feel sick with this carpet and table cloth set"

Reporter: "You look a little pale Chris, are you feeling ok"

Chris: "No, No, I'm fine, just very glad to be here, ANNIE change in my colour is merely down to the heat and not this VARY homely interior design"

"from mexico to san jose"

So we are now two weeks in to the #ncfc pre season. It should be remembered that pre season is more about fitness than it is about results. Results are, when they go your way, a nice by product of the process.

Having said that it doesn't mean you can't critique or make observations from what you have seen.

In terms of tactics it's hard at this point to really tell what the nice man of football, Chrissy Hughton, is looking to go with for next term. This is made even harder by the distinct lack of options up front currently available to him. I suspect that upon their return from the states we will see some more dramatic movements in this area [see my Silly Season blog next for more details on potential ins and outs]. In the mean time Chrissy boy will have to make do with Luciano Becchio and The Wolf, which due to the pre season being all about fitness would therefore indicate that for the Portland Timbers game on Wednesday evening he will play with one up top so he can afford both players 45 minutes each as to not take unnecessary risk with injury.

Dorados de Sinaloa 0 - 3 Norwich City

This was the first of our pre season friendlies and with all due respect to Dorados it was more of an exhibition match than a testing 90 minute friendly.

The first note on this is that the game was played on a baseball pitch, obviously turf was laid to make it into a football pitch but in terms of pitch quality it wasn't of the highest standard.

The second note is that Dorados de Sinaloa play in the 2nd Division of Mexican Football which if we are to be honest would be like us facing a non league english side.

However they were around 6 weeks ahead of us in their pre season schedule so their fitness was very high and the mexican game is a very fast paced, intricate passing game so they were, at least for the first 45, a reasonable test on our fitness. With fitness and game time being the main objective this was a good opening fixture for the boys in Yellow.

The Wolf, Hoolahan and Leroy Fer were left out of the line up, Chris Hughton chose to rest them a little longer as they had all been involved in international games over the summer.

On a personal note it was nice to see some of the younger youth academy guys get a run out notably Josh Murphy and Adel Gafaiti. It was also good to see Becchio final net his first goal in yellow and green since his January move from Leeds United or as our fans have now dubbed them "The Feeder Club" (sorry Leeds but it is kinda true!). As this match was unavailable for live streaming (despite my best efforts and a 3am wake up to try and find a working link) I can't really evaluate it all that much other than to say it's always nice to kick things off with a win.

It is also worth taking a quick look at a wonder strike from Josh Murphy to complete our 3-0 drubbing of Dorados de Sinaloa:

[video courtesy of Canaries Player]

I predict very big things for both the Murphy's and can't wait to see them get their run out in the first team in the next couple of years. Personally I feel that at the moment it is too soon for either, I would prefer to either keep them running riot in the U21 team or ship them out on loan to a mid table championship side to get them game time at a truly competitive level. I also think it might be worth splitting them up, which is why I suspect Hughton has opted to take just Josh with him to the states. As twins they will inevitably understand each others movements on and off the ball very well but we do need to see how either behave on their own and with others.

San Jose Earthquakes 1 - 0 Norwich City

This friendly was always going to be a different animal, not least because we were facing a team who are in the middle of their competitive MLS season. The Quakes are a pacey outfit and as this is an area we really struggled against last year, especially when facing counter attacks from teams like Aston Villa and Tottenham to name a few, this seemed on paper good opposition for us to face and true true to form they certainly gave us a run around.

They put our guys through the paces, evidenced by some very sweaty, tired looking faces come the final whistle. In terms of a fitness exercise you would have to deem the game a success, Almost the entire squad that travelled got game time and this is the most important factor at this stage.

Unfortunately there isn't much to write home about in terms of team performance however there were some noteworthy individual performances.

Nathan Redmond played the first 45 minutes the same as he did against Dorados and JESUS CHRIST this guy is quick, his speed and movement off the ball is a joy to watch and his movement and creativity on the ball is just as good. He was running rings around San Jose, my only criticism was that his final ball tended to let him down a touch. Having said that this is still very early pre season and he is no doubt finding his feet. I can see this guy being the buy of the decade if his early performances are anything to go on. He seems to have fitted in great with the squad, him and Elliot Bennett in particular seem to have a little bromance going on! Awww bless 'em! This guy will end up costing us £3.2mill if reports are to be believed and for that we have gotten ourselves not only a future England star but also a very smart return on our investment in 3-4 years. It would not surprise me to see this guy eventually be sold for 15-20million, he really does have THAT much potential!

Leroy Fer made his debut in Canary colours, he didn't see a whole lot of the ball, however when he did pick up the ball he looked dangerous with it. His passing, bar a terrible cross field ball that smacked an unsuspecting Alex Tettey square in the side of the face, was superb. His passes were hit with pace and precision which, as any Norwich City fan will tell you, was an area we really needed to address after our poor possession stats from last year. I have long been saying that what we needed was a midfielder who could not only hold up the ball in the centre of the park, intimidate midfielders and defenders but also a strong and creative passer of the ball, in Leroy Fer we have certainly, based on what I have seen so far (albeit very little), gotten ourselves exactly that. He held up the ball brilliantly and in almost the polar opposite to Alex Tettey (whom I will get to shortly) was positively in control of every situation, he was calm, collected, unpredictable without being erratic, and creative to boot!

Ricky Van Wolfswinkel got his first outing in green and yellow and whilst I can assure you all that he looked very sharp, there is unfortunately not much more I can tell you as we weren't really given a chance to see much of him. His movement off the ball looked good, on a couple of occasions he found some space. The predictable hoofed long ball over the top found him on one occasion but his shot at goal was brilliantly blocked by the incoming Earthquake defender. He did seem to be getting a little frustrated at one point with a couple of San Jose defenders, it would appear that Mr Wolf can indeed be a handful (remind you of anyone). Moments later he drew a freekick in a dangerous position affording us a corner that Anthony Pilkington wasted with a heavy ball in that ended up rolling back out of play for a throw in. The service to him was poor, our midfielders at this point seemed more intent on passing the ball backwards to Mark Bunn, and our back four. In fact it was a sloppy back pass from Russell Martin (or Russ Martinez as the commentator called him) that lead to the San Jose goal.

I will also give a special shout out to two players I thought had an excellent game. Firstly Daniel Ayala, I was a fan of this guy when he arrived under Paul Lambert and I was disappointed to see him shipped out on loan last year. He does in fairness have a little way to go yet but I was very impressed by how assured he looked at CB. He was calm, his pace and movement was good and he looked in control of most of the San Jose attacks. I'm really looking forward to seeing more of him over this pre season period. Secondly Adel Gafaiti really impressed me, again much like Nathan Redmond, his pace and movement were sublime. I couldn't really figure out where he was playing to be honest but his performance was a stand out one and worth a mention.

Finally although it's a pre season friendly I do think it's worth picking out some of the negatives from the game:

Creativity: Literally non existent... sorry but it's true. Snodgrass and Pilkington tried to get a couple of crosses into the box but the former was more intent on falling over the minute someone came within a metre of him that he spent more time arguing with the linesman and ref than he did trying to forge passes into the box or through the middle.

He did this a lot last season and it really bugged me! Unfortunately for me though, more often than not the decision would go his way and we would have a set piece in a dangerous position, which we often scored from. HOWEVER... this season it will be different, teams will know how to defend against our set plays and we can't simply rely on them for our goals. We must be more creative in the middle of the park.

Hughton brought Wessi on in the second half presumably to get him some match time as well as to give us some creativity in the centre of the park. Now before you all start attempting to jump through your computer screens to kill me. I like Wes Hoolahan BUT for me he isn't anywhere near consistent enough. With a creative midfielder like Wes you expect that they will not complete every pass and that their dropped pass percentage will be higher than others. Wes suffers from the same problem that Snodgrass does, because from time to time he has these glimpses of genius on and off the ball, people seemingly forget all the passes he has wasted and the amount of times he has given the ball away in the last 10 minutes. There is, in his defence, too much of a reliance on him. Having said that, when you are playing in the Premier League, possession and keeping possession is absolutely key! If you have the ball, the other team can't score it's as simple as that. Wes is the biggest culprit for this and for me his time on the pitch next season will be limited. Redmond has better pace and movement and his crossing, and passing ability is much better, he has played in the hole behind the front two before under Chris Hughton at Birmingham and I would not be surprised to see him edging Wes to the bench this season.

Finally a very short word on Alex Tettey... I bloody love this guy! No one can fault his desire, drive, enthusiasm, and energy... but if I can offer one tiny little piece of advise Alex, just slow down a little bit ok :) JESUS he is soooooo irratic, chases every ball [great], goes in for every tackle [great], but his movement and final ball let him down. He certainly has some speed on him and I personally think he works best as a defensive midfielder although I'm sure he would describe himself as box to box. He reminds me of a puppy chasing a stick... the problem is once he gets it, he's so quick to get rid of it so he can chase it again that he drops it in the river and someone else then has to wade through the used condoms, beer cans and poo to retrieve it (sorry that is a bizzare analogy but you get my drift). Someone on twitter put it perfectly... "Alex Tettey, definately the most unpredictable player at Norwich City FC"...

Hope you have enjoyed this diatribe. See you next time and don't forget to follow me on twitter @chrisdeighton and let me know your thoughts by commenting below!

ON THE BALL CITY!