Carrow Road witnessed an utterly barmy game of football on Saturday as Liverpool beat Norwich 5-4.
The Reds went ahead after 18 minutes only for Norwich to get
back on terms and then pull 3-1 ahead early in the second half.
Liverpool then scored three times in 20 minutes to go ahead, only for Sebastian Bassong to equalise two minutes into injury time.
There were still three added minutes to go, however - and
Liverpool somehow found a winner through Adam Lallana with mere seconds
left on the clock.
"It was one of the best, worst games I've ever seen," said BT
Sport pundit Chris Sutton after the match. "Woeful defending - every
time the ball went in the box the team seemed to score!"
It's not the first time that the Premier League has witnessed
such a crazy match finishing 5-4, however - and incredibly, Norwich have
felt similar pain before...
Norwich City 4-5 Southampton - 9 April 1994
The Canaries lost a similar injury time thriller on home soil
just under 22 years ago (can you believe it was that long ago?) in a
match which turned Southampton's season around, and saw them grab safety
from a seemingly impossible position. The teams went in at 1-1 after
Mark Robins' opener for Norwich was cancelled out by an own goal from Robert Ullathorne just before half-time.
But it was after the break that things really picked up, as five
goals in the first 18 minutes of the second half - including two from
Sutton, two from Matt Le Tissier and one from Jeremy Goss - turned an
entertaining game into a barnstormer. Le Tissier completed his hat-trick
with 17 minutes left to make it 4-4, and as the game ticked on into
injury time it seemed that the points would be shared.
Le Tissier had other ideas, however: as the seconds ticked away
he made one more surging run and this time, instead of finishing it off
himself, fizzed the ball across into the centre where Ken Monkou had
charged upfield, the defender smashing a bouncing shot past the helpless
Norwich goalkeeper Bryan Gunn.
“It was like there was no midfield and both teams were saying
‘OK, you have an attack, then we’ll have an attack, and let’s see what
happens,’” said Le Tissier in 2013.
"I remember doing an interview after the game and saying
‘Hopefully we’ll look back at the end of the season and say Ken’s header
was the goal that saved us from being relegated’.
"And sure enough it was. We ended up staying up by a point.”
West Ham 5-4 Bradford City - 12 February 2000
West Ham's crop of brilliant young players clubbed together to
produce one of the finest comebacks in English top flight history. It
started off close: Dean Windass's opener on the half-hour was cancelled
out by Trevor Sinclair
just five minutes later, and when John Moncur put the Hammers ahead two
minutes before half-time, Bradford went straight up the other end from
the restart and won a penalty which was slotted home by Peter Beagrie.
Bradford pulled 4-2 ahead within six minutes of the restart to
take charge
Redknapp was absolutely delighted at what he'd witnessed, one of
those games that is still fondly remembered by Hammers fans.
“That game is what it's all about for supporters,” he said at
the time. “They come to be entertained and they certainly got their
money's worth today. It was a magnificent game.”
Tottenham 4-5 Arsenal - 13 November 2004
The greatest ever North London derby? Spurs fans would say not,
and point instead to the 3-2 win from two goals behind at the Emirates
in 2010, while Arsenal fans might feasibly have enjoyed the pair of 5-2
thrashings dished out to Spurs in February and November of 2012.
But for neutrals, the nailbiting day at White Hart Lane in the winter of 2004 is undoubetedly the best of the lot - nine goals, nine different scorers, and all on Martin Jol's first match in charge of Tottenham.
Thierry Henry
cancelled out Noureddine Naybet's opener for Spurs on the stroke of
half-time to send the teams in 1-1 at the break, and when Lauren and Patrick Vieira put the Gunners 3-1 up after an hour, there only seemed one likely winner. Jermain Defoe's belting strike almost from the restart kept he home fans optimistic, and the fun kept on coming as Freddie Ljungberg and Ledley King each scored in the next 10 minutes or so to make it 4-3.
, Jamie Lawrence scoring both, and with 25 minutes left it
seemed that Harry Redknapp's
Hammers would end up losing - mainly thanks to some shocking keeping
from teenage goalie Stephen Bywater, the third-choice stopper who had
come on after five minutes because of a serious injury to Shaka Hislop,
and who spilled one of Lawrence's strikes into the net.
Redknapp threw on Paul Kitson as he put three men up front, and
it made an immediate impact as he won a penalty which Paolo di Canio
conevrted, and five minutes later the then-teenage Joe Cole finished off a stunning team effort to level things up. The match seemed set for a draw after that - but Frank Lampard popped up seven minutes from the end, Di Canio having opened up Bradford's defence before setting the future Chelsea superstar up to lash a left-foot shot into the top corner.
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