Norrköping moved a step further clear at the top of the Superettan table with a 2-0 win away at Varbergs BoIS on Wednesday evening. The visitors took all three points at the Varberg Energy Arena in front of a sell-out crowd, extending their lead over second-placed Varbergs to ten points after twenty-three rounds.
The visitors took the lead in the fifty-fourth minute when Christoffer Nyman found the net, and then sealed the result when Moutaz Neffati added a second in the seventy-second. To be fair, the hosts had their chances — they registered six shots on target and seven off target — but Norrköping's accuracy of thirty-eight percent made the difference.
And here's the thing about this result: it was not a game decided by possession. Both sides held fifty percent of the ball, yet Norrköping's ten attacks more than Varbergs's ninety-five tell a different story. We had given an away win at forty-four per cent confidence before kick-off, and the visitors delivered when it mattered.
Varbergs saw their captain Gustav Broman booked twice in quick succession in the twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth minutes, while Isak Vidjeskog picked up a caution in the thirty-sixth. The home side made three changes in the sixtieth minute as they tried to find a way back into the match.
Norrköping responded with their own trio of substitutions in the seventieth-second minute, bringing on Alexander Fransson, Viktor Christiansson and Emil Hellman. The hosts made three more changes of their own in the seventy-seventh minute before both sides brought on fresh legs in the closing stages.
The result leaves Norrköping on forty-nine points at the summit, while Varbergs remain on thirty-nine after eleven wins, six draws and six defeats. The visitors have now won fifteen of their twenty-three games and are running out of games to drop points before the business end of the season.
