NCFC 25/26 • Wrexham (H)

And so we get to the fabled Deadpool Derby, with Ryan Reynolds' Wrexham against Hugh Jackman's Norwich City.

The sentiment coming into this game was that we could not lose to Wrexham. Not only because we desperately needed a home win, but it's Wrexham, a meme club that have bought their way to three back-to-back promotions. We couldn't lose to Wrexham.

Unfortunately, we did lose to Wrexham. Badly.

I don't have a very big football brain and couldn't give much insight on what I'm watching most of the time, as is probably evident from these blog posts. But Jesus Christ, what the fuck was that.

The first half was just scrappy. No real sense of direction or attempts to create anything. Topić got himself a yellow for a bizarre unforced handball after going down right outside their box, with the resulting free kick being saved by Kovačević, and they hit the post with a curling shot a few minutes later. The linesman missed a blatant offside by Kieffer Moore which luckily didn't come to anything (although he did clatter into Kovačević which shouldn't have really been allowed to happen) which earned him a chorus of jeering for the next ten minutes, until he correctly flagged the next one followed by sarcastic cheering. We had a handful of shots but it felt like they were knocking on the door more than we were. Stacey got a goal out of nowhere on 40 minutes with a tidy pass into the net, which was good to see after he'd been out with a concussion. We went in at half time 1-0 up which was probably more than we deserved.

Just 15 minutes later, we were 3-1 down.

I have no idea what Liam Manning told them at half time but fuck me, it was a complete and utter collapse. Full on Space Jam. The first came before some people had even got back to their seats with their pies, with a long pass up the pitch being met with a first touch cross to Windass (who had ironically been linked with Norwich) in acres of space, and he finished with a half volley into the net. An excellent goal, but far too easy. Kovačević saved us from conceding again, for a few minutes at least, until another cross into the box to Longman, also in acres of space, put one past a few bodies to slot home. A few minutes later, a switch of play and a beautiful curling shot by Windass for his second gave Wrexham their third. Three good, well worked goals that were just far too easy. The atmosphere was starting to turn toxic. The guy next to me stood up and shouted "we're getting run around by Wrexham for Christ's sake". And I mean he wasn't wrong. We were heading to our third home league defeat in a row against Wrexham, the Hollywood FC meme club, and a heavy one at that. A promising summer window was starting to feel like a distant memory.

We finally made some subs a few minutes later, but at that point it was too little too late. Things should have been switched up after they equalised. Ante Crnac had another ineffective game, which is a shame as I liked him last season, but he's just not been there the last few games and everyone in earshot was calling for him to come off in the first half, never mind the second half. When we could see Liam Gibbs coming on, the people on either side of me both came out with something akin to "oh great, Liam Gibbs passing sideways for the next half an hour, that's just what we need".

Ironically, he did proceed to pass sideways and lost the ball a lot too, but the entire back line seemed totally devoid of any ideas. Passing sideways, passing backwards, standing still looking around at each other literally holding their hands out looking lost. There was no urgency at all given the position we were in. The fact Big Bad Vlad was man of the match despite letting in 3 says everything, without him it would have been even worse.

Makama managed to bag a scrappy goal in the 94th minute after the ball was parried out by the Wrexham keeper after a shot from Gibbs, which didn't even really prompt any celebrations in the South Strand at least, but the players then suddenly seemed to wake up and remember they were trying to win a game of football - we started looping balls into the box and there was suddenly an air that maybe we were about to rescue the most undeserved point in history, but it was still mixed in with dithering at the back and lack of control.

It ended 3-2 and we're only above Wrexham in the league by virtue of goal difference, with us on the grand total of 0 and them on -1, so without that late goal they'd have gone above us.

Overall, a really, really bad day at the office and a real concern. 7 points out of a possible 18 after 6 games isn't promotion form. Things need to start coming together, and soon.