Manager dominates the news at Norwich

Norwich are a club desperate to get back up to the Premiership, if they don't make it this time they will be back to trying without the benefit of the advantage giving parachute payment, and although they have started brightly enough at Carrow Road it is on their travels where things aren't as good as they could be.

They have failed to win an away game as yet, and from all accounts last Saturday's performance at Plymouth, as they went down 3-1, was unacceptable. Worthington said it wasn't good enough, “I asked for passion, desire and enthusiasm, and it just wasn't there,” he said after the game.

That was nothing compared to the comments from major shareholders Michael Wynn Jones and his wife Delia Smith who gave one of those ‘has she been on the cooking sherry' type rallying calls. They issued a statement which surely confirms the rumours that Worthington has two games to save his job, the statement, from Wynn Jones and Smith, read:

“We and the Board are deeply concerned by the lack of passion and commitment in the team's performance on Saturday and wish to apologise particularly to the 776 loyal supporters who undertook the long and arduous journey to Plymouth, but also to our fans who have given us such wonderful support. You deserve more.

“We are determined to achieve success at Norwich City, and to that end we expect this situation to be rectified at our next home game on Sunday and at our next away game. We rely on our manager and squad to do this not only on behalf of our supporters but for the long term future of the Club.”

I think that says it all, and clearly they will be looking for a new manager come a week next Monday should there be no big response to the latest of her rallying calls, and we can only hope there is no immediate response from the players.

To add to all that there were rumours flying around that two of their players, Dickson Etuhu and Youssef Safri had been involved in a fight on the team coach. That was quickly denied by the club but they did reveal that the altercation took place on the training ground. The two players have been quick to publicly make up since it became public.

There have been no massive changes to the squad last season, probably less than at any other club. They said goodbye to both goalkeepers Rob Green and Darren Ward. Green, out injured, went to West Ham for £2 million whilst Ward joined Sunderland. Leon McKenzie joined Coventry, bringing in another million whilst Simon Charlton, a scorer last season, went to Oldham on a free transfer.

The only pre-season signing was 21 year old Manchester City forward Lee Croft and he's a regular in the side, whilst last week they added veteran Dion Dublin who is set for his first home appearance on Sunday after making his debut as a substitute last week at Plymouth.

Worthington also currently has two loan players in – goalkeeper Lee Camp from Derby, who is acting as cover for Paul Gallacher, and young Everton defender Patrick Boyle.

Home form had been good until the last match when a stoppage time winner from Shefki Kuqi saw Palace beat them 1-0, the only points dropped so far at Carrow Road.

Click HERE to see all Norwich's results this season.

It's not a ground we often do well on and our last win there was in the 2000/01 season when goals from Kevin Ball, Gareth Taylor and Ian Moore gave us a -2 win, that win was just a few months after Worthington had become manager, he had replaced former Northern Ireland international Bryan Hamilton.

One of the battlers Youssef Safri has done much of the talking this week and the Moroccan midfielder, who is currently fasting for Ramadan, will play as will his sparring partner Etuhu.

Definitely ruled out are Adam Drury, who has just had an ankle operation, and Ian Henderson and they are waiting on the fitness of Darren Huckerby, who has been out for three weeks with a groin injury.

Huckerby is back in training but Worthington has said he will only play if fully fit, he will not otherwise be risked. If he is declared fit then he will come straight back into the side, otherwise it is likely they will keep the same team that surrendered at Plymouth, and that was:

Paul Gallacher, Jurgen Colin, Craig Fleming, Gary Doherty, Patrick Boyle, Youssef Safri, Carl Robinson, Dickson Etuhu, Lee Croft, Paul McVeigh, Robert Earnshaw. Subs from: Lee Camp, Jason Shackell, Andy Hughes, Ryan Jarvis, Peter Thorne, Dion Dublin.

Click HERE to see the full Norwich squad.

There will certainly be one change in the Burnley side with captain (for now) Wayne Thomas ruled out as his four match suspension gets underway. The two main candidates for his position are Frank Sinclair and Stephen Foster with Sinclair the most likely to come in. That could see him go to right back with Michael Duff moving into the centre, as we did at Palace, or Frank could slot in at centre half as we did last week after the red card incident.

Other than that I can see Steve Cotterill keeping the same team, and if that's the case I would assume that Wade Elliott will be hoping to get something more than twenty minutes football this week after being sacrificed in the Southampton game.

We will probably line up: Brian Jensen, Michael Duff, Frank Sinclair, John McGreal, Jon Harley, Wade Elliott, James O'Connor, Micah Hyde, Steve Jones, Andy Gray, Gifton Noel-Williams: Subs from: Stephen Foster, Chris McCann, Garreth O'Connor, Alan Mahon, John Spicer, Graham Branch, Kyle Lafferty.

One thing for certain is that it won't be as cold tomorrow as it was last time we were in Norwich. That was the Wednesday night between Christmas and New Year as we travelled along snow covered roads to reach or destination.

The roads outside Carrow Road were treacherous and there was no respite inside with a cold icy wind as we sat at the corner of the new stand that offered less than little protection.

There wasn't much to warm us up during the first half either. We switched to a back five, bringing in Wayne Thomas for his first start since he had got his cruciate injury at Reading in August, but we were soon behind to a Simon Charlton goal.

Darren Huckerby doubled the lead six minutes before half time and we looked to be in real trouble but Elliott replaced the injured Spicer just before half time and Branch came on for Thomas at the break. These two players had done well two days earlier against Stoke and again they helped lift the performance.

We pulled a goal back, a goal that was credited as a Safri own goal although Harley's original shot was on target and he could have expected to have been given it. Although they could have caught us on the break a couple of times, we really put them under some late pressure but in the end went down to a 2-1 defeat.

The teams were;

Norwich: Robert Green, Jurgen Colin, Craig Fleming, Gary Doherty, Adam Drury, Carl Robinson (Dickson Etuhu 85), Youssef Safri, Simon Charlton, Darren Huckerby, Dean Ashton (Leon McKenzie 65, Peter Thorne 89), Paul McVeigh. Subs not used: Darren Ward, Ian Henderson.

Burnley: Brian Jensen, Michael Duff, Wayne Thomas (Graham Branch 45), Frank Sinclair, John McGreal, Jon Harley, John Spicer (Wade Elliott 45), Micah Hyde, James O'Connor, Gifton Noel-Williams (Garreth O'Connor 90), Ade Akinbiyi. Subs not used: Lee Grant, Danny Karbassiyoon.

Previous 20 Seasons
Season	Div	Ven	Result	Att	Scorers
1987/88	LC	h	1-1	7,912	Oghani
.	.	a	0-1	6,168	.
2000/01	1	h	2-0	15,017	Payton Davis
.	.	a	3-2	17,507	Ball Taylor Moore
2001/02	1	a	1-2	19,849	Armstrong
.	.	h	1-1	14,679	Taylor
2002/03	1	h	2-0	16,282	McGregor Little
.	.	a	0-2	20,026	.
2003/04	1	a	0-2	16,407	.
.	.	h	3-5	12,417	Wood May Blake
2005/06	C	a	1-2	25,204	Safri(og)
.	.	h	2-0	11,938	Gray Branch

Click HERE to see more results against Norwich since we first met in 1934 when the Clarets won 3-2 in Norwich.