With only two home games remaining and abysmal away form blighting us for a couple of seasons now it’s squeaky bum time if results fail to materialise in Wales today.

I’d suggest it’s a three horse race between us, Forest and Barnsley for the final relegation place. Forest look like they’re hitting some good form and Barnsley have a couple of games in hand and similar goal difference to us. It looks like Saints and certainly Charlton are going down.

Here’s how I see it. Having drawn o-o at Barnsley earlier in the season, where David Marshall saved a 13th minute penalty and made a few impotant saves to win us a point, and beaten Southampton 2-0 and Doncaster 2-1, we should have the upper hand. However, following Glenn Roeder’s man management skills our entire squads’ self confidence and self belief is at an all time low. With the Rodent having been shown the door after Wednesday nights dire 1-0 reverse against bottom of the league, not won in 18 games, Charlton, we have to be on the up and up.

Putting aside potential replacement managers for the time being, the appointment of City legend and all round good scotch egg Bryan Gunn is a good move by the board. He made 477 appearances as City goalkeeper, the vast majority being in the top flight, he’s been a coach, a liason officer and is currently the head of player recruitment. As he spoke to the press yeasterday and indicated that tears had been shed at the state of the club, it’s obvious his love of all things Norwich City runs deep. He knows this club. He knows the players and has their respect I’d venture, either having played with them, coached them or helped sign them in the first place. So a good performance from the lads for Gunny is a given and with plenty of vocal support a full house at Carrow Road brings I’d imagine a win today over an overperforming Barnsley team who we’ve beaten six times in the last eight meetings, drawing the other two.

We then have a ten day break of games. time to appoint a new manager and build the squad’s confidence further. Hopefully…

Tuesday 27 Jan evening game at home to Southampton, a new managerial appointment and a win is essential as this and the Doncaster game are ‘6 pointers’. Speculation keeps linking Saints with a permanent move for our little Italian loanee Arturo Lupoli and if they pull it off I’d bank on him scoring against us. La Viola aren’t in any dire need for finances following the sale of Pazzini and rumoured other sales so hopefully they’ll do us a favour and keep him here. In which case we’ll definitely win. Saints are even more goal shy than us, with a similarly poor defence. I see our back four starting to return to form with the re-aquisition of Jonathan Grounds and having Jamie Cureton back from his successful goal scoring and starting role at Barnsley (why would you Glenn???) we’ll have the upper hand. Southampton are always a banana skin with Norwich, games seem to ding dong back and forth and the results are never clear cut, so I’ll err on the side of caution and predict a draw.

Then oop North to Donny. They have the worst attack in the league, scoring just 17 goals, in all four English leagues no one has a worse record in front of goal with WBA and Hereford Utd being equally inept. Under the Roeder regime you would bank on Doncaster filling their boots and hitting the goal trail big time as every other team on a bad run has against us this season. No longer I feel, and this game should see a win for the Canaries if we can put away our chances.

If we get the performances we should then 7 points from these three games is a very realistic target, even with current form. And it’ll have to be, as we then travel to top of the league Wolverhampton where we’ve hardly ever performed well. They’ll be up for revenge after our 5-2 win here this season and we’ll have to be on our mettle.

On the Ball City!

This does show how far our form and pattern of play has come. We no longer capitulate. In the two games against Charlton and Wolves Norwich came from behind via Darel Russell and Jamie Cureton. We had the better chances against Charlton and sadly didn’t convert to a win, and the same can be said for the Palace game in which we fought hard and nearly denied an impressively on-form team that had leapt from the relegation places to seventh in the table.

We do need now to press on with a win or two. We still lurk in danger, tottering precariously with only two points between us and the relegation zone. I have to say however, although Roeder and his team have done a superb job so far with the spot-on loan signings directly affecting the lacking areas, to talk as he did after the Palace game and suggest that ‘this club can now start thinking about getting back to where it belongs’ is dangerous I think and staggeringly premature. The hard work has no doubt been ploughed in, we can see the visible results in the change in league position and manner of play. However, it must never be forgotten we lurk only two points away from danger. One game of failure, with another team’s success and back we are in the maelstrom.

I don’t believe in this kind of talk yet. Norwich do not belong as club with its facilities two places above the relegation zone…but to ignite premature fantasies is a gamble. We all know they can lead to the deadening offshoots of complacency and we do not want to trek towards that unsightly place.

But yes, Roeder should be pleased…thus far. That is all I suggest.

Having said that, Charlton’s Sodje made a string of important moves and blocks in defence and looked an integral part of the Charlton machine…that was until he decided to lunge two feet off the ground at Darel Russel and was correctly sent off (after the game, Alan Pardew decided he agreed…how humble).

This changed the nature of the game, and not for the better as some commentators expected. Norwich piled forward but weren’t seeing much coming to fruition…Darren Huckerby had a shot blocked, Ched Evans was denied…but eventually Darel Russel converted a Darren Huckerby corner into a 1-1 scoreline through a good header.

It was ours to win really, Cureton was operating the channels…all players were working really hard and as always…when Lee Croft comes on a new side of creativity is introduced…. which is really what you want when you are playing ten men! But we didn’t win, we managed a draw. And, as a tad of disappointment sizzles in the back of your mind remember only this:a month or so ago we would have been terrified of playing Charlton. Now we gave them a good game and should have won. Still a few points from safety. Keep it moving!

It was a tricky, labouring affair with Scunthorpe showing how they have gone eleven games now without a win and Norwich fans praying their team would take advantage. They did in the end, in a fashion the BBC described as “smash and grab” and it was particularly savoury because of its importance. Six games unbeaten? Picking up points is great!

Jamie Cureton made the difference in scoreline when he came on for Dion Dublin on 61 minutes and after about ten minutes his impact was made when he converted Otsemobor’s cross to send us home 0-1 happy!

Ched Evans had a one on one and Darren Huckerby seemed to blaze wide but we were also indebted to Mr Reliable David Marshall for a string of important and typical saves. The best from a powerful Scunthorpe header.

Having said all that positive comment and logging about what happened on Saturday I do feel a little nervous about how me might fair against a club like Charlton on boxing day…

Most people regarded the game itself as a rotten, toiling, drab affair where neither side showed any sparkle. A typical championship relegation battle a cynic would say. The one promising thing that did come out of it was Norwich’s willingness to fight and toil in a winter Layer Road subsumed with gloominess and cold. This could prove to be a vital result really, we didn’t slip back down back into the relegation places…swapping places with Colchester twice in two weeks would have been frustrating after having done so well to be undefeated in five games out of six. That is promising we kept at it till the very end and gained our rewarded point. Its important for the trip to Scunthorpe to be still in there, fourth from bottom, amongst it all.

It’s a shame. I thought perhaps he might stay… but Roeder has said there were several other Championship clubs interested. So, it appears to me there’s not much room for sentimentality these days. Taylor did extremely well for us, and I grew to hope in sentimentality that having won such widespread respect from the fans and helping us out of the bottom three he might stay. Wrong! Sentimentality check everyone! He played out of his skin because he wanted to get his career back on track, he wanted to raise his asking price, boost his wage demands from other Championship clubs, perhaps not lurking so near the foot of the table. I have now had my reality check. I don’t blame Martin Taylor, I am just disappointed by the nature of things.

Is ‘the Doc’ up to it? The old relationship resumed, Doherty and Shackell…then?

Ched Evans scored from a superb Darren Huckerby cross on ten minutes. Huckerby more than making up for the hard time the crowd gave him on Tuesday night. He summoned his old sparkle and match-winning qualities for the first half against Sheffield United.

That wasn’t it however. Roeder said before the game he didn’t want anymore ‘avoidable goals’ being given away (Stoke, Plymouth) and that he wanted Norwch when in the lead to squash the potential of the game. That didn’t happen, Norwich let it slip and slip and the Blades were running Norwich ragged in the second half with James Beattie volleying wide and Keith Gillespie having fun causing all sorts of horrific problems in the Norwich half.

Gary Cahill even had a goal ruled out for Sheffield United. The Sheffield United players complained en masse and continued to complain in their comment after the game but my alibi used is the Radio Norfolk commentary team: Neil Adams and Chris Goreham clearly said, after watching the replays, that Cahill was a yard offside. A tough decision then, but the right one.

Norwich win, they hold on raggedly in an embattled second half, and swap places with Colchester who are now in the bottom three at the expense of Norwich. Wahoo! Now lets make this change permenant. Full credit to the team and management for the character of the turnaround. I didn’t expect positives this quick. The loan signings have been superb, and the new spirit and character to merely start scoring after a month-long drought let along ending the eleven match winless run with four wins out of five is big enough. But as we all too easily know, now is not the time for complacency.