After the anxiety fest of the last round, this was pretty much plain sailing once we’d taken control of the game in the first half, we ended up comfortable winners in this FA Cup tie at home to Norwich City. Now for the 6th round, for the first time since 2003.

Had we beaten Sunderland on Tuesday night we might have been able to treat ourselves to the luxury of going full tilt at the FA Cup. But with defeat in that game putting us back into the relegation mix, a little caution was still needed for this game.

So Daniel Farke made nine changes for this game, though with a couple of first choice players on the bench in case things went pear-shaped. That said, all nine of the incoming players have featured in the Premier League this season, so it still looked to be a reasonably strong side on paper.

Yet during the first 15 minutes they seemed to show the lack of cohesion that you sometimes get from a set of players who don’t play regularly together. We seemed to be playing at a slow pace while Norwich worked hard to close us down, and spent a lot of the time going backwards.

That all changed when Norwich were caught out by a long ball down the middle, when Gnonto beat Grimshaw to the ball as the Norwich keeper charged off his line, and it ran free for Nmecha to knock the ball into the net. I thought we had the goal we needed to settle our nerves, but VAR had other ideas, and it was ruled out because the ball had come off Gnonto’s upper arm.

At that point it looked like it could have been one of those days, but instead the disallowed goal seemed to wake us up, and Norwich seemed to wilt as we upped the tempo. As James sent a dangerous ball across the face of goal Nmecha was clearly pushed when he closed in for the touch he needed, but this time VAR declined to intervene.

They said the touch shouldn’t have been strong enough to send him over, but no striker would have gone down easily in that situation, when he just needed to get a touch on the ball to score. The big German then went close with a shot on the turn, but we finally went in front on 32 minutes.

Gudmundsson cut to the by-line and just kept the ball in play before cutting it back to Longstaff, who turned to score a superb goal, sending the ball into the narrow gap between the keeper and the post. We kept up the pressure, and with a full house now roaring the team on we had the ball in the net again, only to be denied by VAR once more as Willy Gnonto was offside.

But there was no intervention when Gudmundsson put us two in front just before half time, making no mistake when the ball was partially cleared after a James cross, and fell invitingly for him inside the area. I thought then that the lead was likely to be enough, as Norwich had hardly threatened during the first half, but they were to have their moments after the break.

It might have been down to us easing off a bit as the second half began, but the Canaries started to show at least a little bit of fight, especially after making a triple substitution. The much-vaunted Ramadan break was sneaked in while they were making that change, which meant that hardly anyone noticed Piroe taking a sip from a water bottle, and it all became a bit of a non-event.

Two of their subs combined to create their best chance of the whole game, when a cross found Slimane just beyond the far post, but he somehow screwed the ball wide when I thought Norwich were about to pull one back. That said, Tanaka had raced back onto the goal line, and might have been able to make a block had the header been on target.

The chance was a wake up call that the tie was not yet won, and Farke decided to shore things up by sending a few more of his main men onto the field to shore things up, with Stach, Bogle and Struijk all coming on. After that Norwich sent a couple of long range shots straight at Perri, but nothing to really get worried about.

All the same, we needed a third goal to properly put the tie to bed, and it could have arrived with a fierce shot from distance from Piroe, but substitute keeper Kovačević got a fingertip to it to send the ball onto the bar. Kovačević made further saves from Nmecha and Justin, before we finally sealed the game on 85 minutes.

Stach picked up the ball deep in our own half, and found Nmecha as we broke downfield. With the Norwich defence stretched Piroe was free on the right, and as Nmecha played him in he had time to set himself, before curling a superb shot round the keeper and inside the far post. After that we could have just cruised to the final whistle, but we kept trying to make the scoreline even more emphatic.

After all, these were players who haven’t had many opportunities recently, and they were keen to take the chance to show what they could do. Nmecha seemed certain to score in injury time from Gnonto’s cross, but the ball was slightly behind him and a defender was there to make a block by the time he’d got it out of his feet.

The ref gave a goal kick when it should have been a corner, but it didn’t matter as the final whistle came soon after. Much will now depend on tomorrow evenings 6th round draw (about 7.05 on TNT Sport) , as the 7 possible opponents include 4 of the top teams, but given a bit of luck we might dare to start dreaming of Wembley.

I only hope that by the time the quarter-finals come round on the weekend of 4th April we will be in a more secure position in the league, so we can give the FA Cup our full attention.

Reuters