Last night Norwich City beat Bristol City with another late show, to march forwards as the promotion race enters the final stretch.
With just nine games left in the season the Canaries find themselves in the automatic promotion places three points clear of the chasing pack.
The real story of tonight and the Canaries season though has been the impact of the abundance of late goals that Norwich have come up with time and time again to turn matches and scramble the points they need to stay in the promotion race.
Having scored 12 goals in the last five minutes or beyond this season Norwich have added at least nine points to their tally courtesy of their late endeavours. In February this included wins against Millwall and Reading after the scores were level heading into the last five minutes of the game.
These late goals which have given Paul Lambert’s men an edge and frazzled nerves to the point where fans may wonder if it is worth watching anything but the last 10 minutes of the game.
Tonight to make sure fans continue to get to their seats promptly the Canaries did pack the opening moments with action, with Grant Holt converting a penalty just 2 minutes in following a clumsy challenge from Liam Fontaine.
An Albert Adomah goal from Bristol City on the counter attack after 65 minutes clipped the wings of the Canaries, which combined with some fine goalkeeping and defensive resilence set up another thrilling finish at Carrow Road.
With 89 minutes on the clock Lansbury put the Canaries back in front with just one minute of normal time remaining and you would have been forgiven for thinking that his finish from Wes Hoolahan’s through ball would be sufficient.
However Andrew Surman thought otherwise taking advantage of late Bristol City forward momentum to equalise to make the game safe, whilst adding to the club’s impressive tally of injury time goals this season.
All the talk about the late goals here does not mean that Norwich do not play attractive football and they did more than enough to merit tonights victory, with their passing style to placate the purists.
Yet unlike previous seasons they seem to have found some resolve that may just fire them to the Premiership and I am sure that few in Nelson’s county would be complaining if promotion was sealed in the 93rd minute of the last game of the season.
