James Norwood taunts Forest Green and their fans with a savage post after Barnsley claim the win and all three points on Saturday afternoon.
Devante Cole and Josh Martin both found the net to help Barnsley beat Forest Green Rovers 2-0 in the first ever meeting between the two teams.
Barnsley broke the deadlock on 15 minutes, with Jordan Williams finding space to the right of the box and sent in a looping cross. Top scorer Cole got highest to head the ball past a stretching Lewis Thomas.
Halfway through the second half, Cole had a perfect opportunity to double his tally for the afternoon, with Nicky Cadden crossing the ball from the left for Cole to head, but this time the Rovers’ keeper prevented it from going in.
In the latter stages of the match, the visitors desperately looked for an equaliser, the ball bouncing around the Barnsley box, and substitute Armani Little hit a volley wide in a wasted opportunity.
The Tykes however doubled their lead in the final 10 minutes with substitutes Slobodan Tedić and Martin combined to pass the ball around the keeper for the latter to roll it into the net and send the home fans happy.
Forest Green fans stayed behind at the end of the League One clash to give their former players James Norwood a sending off.
He came across a Twitter video of this moment a said: “Thanks to the 13 of you making the trip and for the 3 points 👍🏼 . 👋🏼👋🏼👋🏼”
Thanks to the 13 of you making the trip and for the 3 points 👍🏼 . 👋🏼👋🏼👋🏼 https://t.co/KOE2Ud3pBG
— James Norwood (@jnorwood_10) October 29, 2022
NORWOOD’S CAREER:
Youth career
1996–2002 – Old Town Boys
2002–2004 – Brighton & Hove Albion
2004–2005 – Crystal Palace
2005–2009 – Eastbourne Town
Senior career
2008–2009 – Eastbourne Town – 16 games (8 goals)
2009–2011 – Exeter City – 4 games (0 goals)
2009–2010 → Sutton United (loan) – 13 games (3 goals)
2010 → Forest Green Rovers (loan) – 11 games (2 goals)
2011 → Eastbourne Borough (loan) – 4 games (0 goals)
2011–2015 – Forest Green Rovers – 161 games (48 goals)
2015–2019 – Tranmere Rovers – 165 games (82 goals)
2019–2022 – Ipswich Town – 77 games (26 goals)
2022– Barnsley – 10 games (3 goals)
National team
2009 – England Schools U18 – 4 games (1 goal)
2013–2015 – England C – 7 games (4 goals)
Twitter users gave their reaction as James Norwood taunts Forest Green and their fans with a savage post after the Barnsley win…
@BCofBWFC: Was in the pub last week and Paul Cook was saying you love getting on the gear. Hopefully it will give you a bit of an energy boost, James.
@JacobSwallow4: My absolute goat 🔛🔝
@madsyszn: my striker 😮💨
@Kieran_Sellick: Never understood this attitude of slagging shit away supports of those who actually are there… surely you would slag the fans who didn’t actually bother to go to the game and not those who did?
@tb194pro: How’s the children
@bfc_cheets: how’s ur plant food?
@_stroudie_: Cheers james, bet you drove home all happy after that…
@SBFCO1: Why would they be bothered. Like anyone would stay at forest green
@unhappyslender: I love Norwood he such wind up merchant
@DylanFGRbanks: Awhh Nors still care’s about Forest Green. Cute
@KennySeniorBWFC: Funny that tbf 🤣
@JackTRFC06: You’ll forever be my hero Nors, what a tweet 😍
@DylanH37333289: We’re living rent free 🤫🤫🤫
@BRowlesy: Imagine being a professional footballer and taking the piss out of a small club and their fans who spend their hard earned cash following football. An embarrassment to @BarnsleyFC
@SFC_Copey: Odd thing for a pro footballer to tweet
@CMcB_89: Bit of nobhead tweet
— Christ Ian (@Christ11Ian) October 29, 2022
Hope you’re not driving anyone home tonight either x
— george.bashford – IB out (@georgebashford4) October 29, 2022
Wouldn’t recommend this one for Halloween again James 👎 pic.twitter.com/hdjBY43tFc
— george.bashford – IB out (@georgebashford4) October 29, 2022
“A deserved win I thought,“ Michael Duff said post-match. “Without being spectacular and sparkling. It’s not going to be that way off the back of the little run we’ve being on.
“They have 60% possession in every game that they play. Now, I understand they’re at the bottom end of the table and a small club in the league. But, with where we’re at, in terms of not scoring many goals and home form hasn’t been brilliant – we knew it was going to be an awkward, difficult game.”
Today’s lineup saw a slight tweak in formation, with Josh Benson, Herbie Kane and Luca Connell forming a midfield three for the Reds.
The gaffer felt the changes allowed his side to become more of a threat going forward after a spell of four games without hitting the back of the net.
“We wanted to put the ball at risk a little bit more,” continued Duff. “We’ve played some nice football on Tuesday night without being penetrative.
“The goal comes from a long diagonal that breaks their back-line. It’s getting their defenders to turn around a little bit more which is why we went with the two nines instead of one centre-forward.”
Jordan Williams returned to the Reds side on Saturday afternoon after a spell on the sidelines with a hamstring injury.
His performance was one of many positives for Duff from the game.
“I was pleased with a lot of what I say today,” he praised. “There’s no getting away from it; we look more of an attacking threat with Jordan in the team. He gives you something others don’t have with his blistering pace.
“You want defenders keeping clean sheets and center-forwards scoring goals. Hopefully, it gave them a shot in the arm.”
Despite being winless in four league games prior to Saturday’s victory, the Reds have only conceded four goals in that period.
Brad Collins registered his seventh clean sheet of the season against Forest Green, with Duff complimenting his side’s defensive solidity and attitude.
“We do a lot of work with the defenders, it is hard work,” he insisted. “There are little details, I’m just passing on what I got taught as a player. If you can be hard to beat it always gives you half a chance.
“The one thing they haven’t done is they haven’t come off it on the training pitch. So, performances have been not brilliant, but we’ve gone a month unbeaten and then we’ve not won for essentially a month.
“Are we brilliant, or are we rubbish? We’re neither. We’re a work in progress. We’ll keep working on the details from today. By no means was it a perfect performance. By no means was it free-flowing, what we want it to be. But, it was an improvement from Tuesday night.”
Forest Green Rovers boss Ian Burchnall said: “I thought we did okay in the first half, I thought we controlled the game with the ball, I thought we were quite dominant. Their goal comes against the run of play in my opinion, we start the game well. It’s a bit disappointing because moments before the first goal Josh March is through, he’s given offside, I’ve looked at it back, he’s about two metres onside and then straight down the other end and they score so that’s the margins sometimes. And then second half we don’t really respond well enough, I think they went very direct, they played lots of long balls and picked up seconds, and we just didn’t do some of dirty work well enough to be able to establish ourselves in the game.
“I thought first half we have the control; they have a couple of counter attacks, but I think we were dominant with the ball, we didn’t create enough with the amount of ball that we had, but we’re away from home at a tough place to come, we control the game with the ball. I felt like when we got to the final third, we needed a bit more clinical when we got there, but they struggled to press us and second half they started to be much more direct, and we didn’t cope with how direct they were.”
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