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Huckerby despatched to the surgeon to fix his hip as Roeder yearns for a final finish

20th January 2008 By Latest News Leave a Comment

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City boss Glenn Roeder left Carrow Road last night shaking his head in disbelief. It was, he muttered afterwards, the most one-sided 0-0 draw he had ever witnessed.

It was also, both he and City No2 Lee Clark suggested, the best 90-minute performance of their managerial reign as the Canaries found all the edge and invention they lacked at Gigg Lane and that humbling mid-week FA Cup exit to tear the Foxes apart for long periods of yesterday's game.

In many ways, yesterday's thrilling contest in front of Carrow Road's biggest crowd of the season summed up a frantic fortnight in the club's recent history. Blink and you miss something.

Be it Dion Dublin's retirement speech, Ian Murray's P45, Clark's link to Newcastle, the four-day reign of a new goalkeeping coach – when it all comes wrapped up in the New Year transfer window, Roeder's feet can be barely touching the ground right now as the stories fly thick and fast.

And so it was with yesterday's game. Blink and you miss something. Three big handballs, a goalmouth scrap, a touchline bust-up, two against the woodwork, a stonewall penalty – and all with Darren Huckerby sat watching events unfold from the stands. Pick your way through that one, Glenn.

First the 'goal' that never was – Lee Croft's crisp 12-yard volley after just five minutes from a perfect, Ryan Bertrand cross.

“I've looked at the video again and Crofty's level, if not half a metre onside,” said Roeder, as Croft ran Leicester completely ragged all afternoon. For many that was his best performance in a Norwich shirt as he nails his place down in Roeder's thinking.

Given that this is a manager that has set his stall out to play with just one, out-and-out winger away from home – and comes perilously close to doing it at Carrow Road given that Chelsea starlet Bertrand is, by upbringing, a left-back – then Huckerby's hopes of a swift return to City's starting line-up look slim.

The 32-year-old, long-time Canary talisman could not find his way to the bench yesterday – a victim, said Roeder, of an on-going hip problem that a consultant will look to get to the bottom of next week. Huckerby himself refused to take questions as he walked through the City Stand concourse after the game.

“He's got a slight hip problem,” said Roeder afterwards, clearly expecting the question. It is, it seems, the same hip problem that limited Huckerby's involvement in pre-season games and training this summer.

Whether that then makes it a 'chronic' hip problem is for the medical men to decide – one of whom has been detailed to get to the bottom of Huckerby's injury this week. Either way, no-one seems particularly comfortable with the current situation. And with the teenage Bertrand giving Roeder the kind of cover and option he needs on the left, so the Canary boss feels now is the right time to seek some answers.

“It needs to be looked at. Next week he'll go and see a surgeon – not to have an operation, but a surgeon who he's seen before and he might just need another jab in it to take away the soreness he's got around his hip.”

By all accounts he wasn't at his sparkling best at Gigg Lane last week; though he had plenty for company in that regard. From a distance, there would appear to be something niggling away at the City favourite – his legendary status in this neck of the woods long since assured.

“I think Darren would be the first to admit that we're not getting the best out of him. And Darren Huckerby is a very important player for Norwich and the team.”

In his absence, however, City still created more than enough chances to win this weekend's game at a stroll. Croft spurned a one-on-one, the ageless Dion Dublin slammed two wonderful headers against the woodwork either side of the break; Jamie Cureton, Gary Doherty and Ched Evans all gained a clear sight of Ben Alnwick's goal before the end. But nigh-on every opportunity proved high, wide and less than handsome.

“We're not working the goalkeeper enough,” said the City chief. “And there's not a day that goes by at the training ground at Colney where we don't practice crossing and finishing. He might have pulled off one or two saves, but saves that he would have been expected to make.

“And it's not just in this game; we've had three or four draws now and we're creating a stackful of chances – we're just not taking them. And instead of propelling us up to half-way in the table and being away from danger already, today it's only kept us five points above the bottom three.”

And while Roeder was willing to give referee Tony Bates the benefit over the Alnwick-Russell melee, he was less forgiving over at least one of the big, handball claims that littered the game as the contest threatened to slip out of the officials' hands in the 15 minutes before the break. Oh, and the moment just before the end when Alnwick smashed into Russell with the ball long gone. Was that not a penalty?

“Well we thought so,” said Roeder, branding the handball miss as “ridiculous”.

“It's not just us – it's every team and every club. You live on a wing and a prayer with officials. I've never moaned about them; I've never criticised them – and I don't particularly want to go down that road. Otherwise people start to think that you're making excuses.

“But nevertheless what I will say is that they're honest people, but they do make mistakes. Because they're human beings. But it's bloody frustrating when the mistakes they're making seem to be against us…”


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