Friedel 6 Couple of good saves and was quick to run all the way out of his box whenever someone threatened to race King.
Walker 5 Not great defending, at least he didn't get sent off. Hopefully he can work on his crossing a little bit. He gave away a couple of dangerous free kicks.
Kaboul 5.5 Covered for King, did ok until he had to go off. It wasn't his best performance but wasn't a complete disaster.
King 3.5 My picture was extremely blurry, so I couldn't see when he was grabbing shirts and had to rely on what was one of the most annoying commentries I've ever heard. He made more mistakes today than he did in all of last year though. The ball bouncing off his foot for their first goal was painful to watch.
BAE 6 It's such a shame that chip didn't go in. Did extremely well covering for King, putting in crosses, driving us forward and did well almost playing LCM at the end.
Lennon 6.5 Good defensive work, looked dangerous, probably could have beaten his man on the right and put in a few more crosses though. Was selfless in switching with Bale a lot of the time.
Livermore 6 Highlighted his passing ability yet again, he's not Hudd (as he showed when he tried to spray a ball to the left flank but hit a Norwich defender head on). Great assist, that was a very good forward defence splitting pass. Unfortunately, he's not quite on par with Parker defensively. He played CB for us earlier in the season (and full back), so I expected him to close people down and snap at heels, but it seems he's more a Romeu type DM.
Modric 6 Got forward quite a bit, passed ok, a couple of dodgy corners but not that bad. His defensive game suffered a bit though.
Bale 6 A bit greedy at times, missed another free header (just like at the Sunderland game), put in crosses, had a couple of wayward shots, roamed a touch more than I'd have liked (although at Norwich roaming like that worked for the only time), made Lennon play left wing a lot more than he should have. Unlucky to hit the bar.
Saha 4.5 Every goal he has was assisted by Ade, or so I heard... He takes a few too many touches and tries to beat a man in order to move away from goal more times than I'd like.
Defoe 6 Nice finish for his goal, good work rate as usual.
Nelson 5 Not a great shot from the corner, wasn't terrible defensively, although he wasn't amazing either. He was good to have in that situation.
Ade 6 Set BAE up for his chip, was handy to have to help defend. Was a tiny bit naive to touch someone in our box when trying to head the ball, football isn't a contact sport in the penalty area.
VDV 5.5 Decent CM performance, unfortunate clash of heads, good corner taking.
Harry 4 Nowhere near as bad as Sunderland but when one defender goes off injured at 44 minutes and one striker is exchanged at halftime, that doesn't leave much room to make changes in the second half. At least people can understand his way of thinking, plus as Norwich are a wing/cross/heading based team it wasn't terrible lack of awareness that caused this, it was bad decision making.
All my blame for sacrificing control of the game, midfield dominance and so on has to go to Harry. It's not Defoe's fault that we gave up so much in order for him to be able to play, Defoe scored 1 goal, we just needed 3 to win. I am disappointed with our defending as a unit, I wasn't particularly inspired by the team sheet and as hard as it is to play on Saturday and Monday, Harry's team selection meant that Livermore and Saha were the non injury enforced subs, not the players that had worked hard at Sunderland, those were players that had to come on to try and save us. If we'd have gone 2-0 up and taken Ade and VDV off for Livermore and Saha and then lost 3-2, it'd be far more understandable than the way everything played out.
We're level on points with Saudi Sportswashing Machine, so it's not like Champion's League qualification requires breaking into the Sky 4 in their prime. Finishing 3rd gives double the TV money from the Champion's League that 4th gives, it gives 775kish extra prize money from the Premier League placings and means we wouldn't have a potentially tricky extra round before the Champion's League. From the position we were in, we should have been able to take 3rd, before today's match, we were still favourites for 3rd. This match was important, it was one of the easier fixtures we had left. This is our third home loss of the season and it was to a team that started today in the second half of the table.