Bryan Gunn's new-look coaching team will sit down this week and have a long, hard think about whatever next for the Canaries.
Back-to-back defeats at home to Bristol City and then away to Preston North End nipped that earlier 'bounce' in the bud.
And with drop-zone rivals Watford and Barnsley both winning last night, so the Norfolk side will head into this Saturday's crucial home clash with Burnley stuck fast in the bottom three.
The only saving grace to last night's results was confirmation that Plymouth are plummeting like a stone. Otherwise, alarmed Canary fans can do little else but buckle up for one, scary ride between now and the end of the season.
What Gunn and Co can do, however, is to look at just what's now left in the locker and put together a side that is – first and foremost – hard to beat.
Keep it simple, you suspect, will become the new mantra at Colney; two, solid banks of four – with Carl Cort slapped straight down the middle.
Who then plays off the six-foot four-inch front man is one of at least three, key questions facing Gunn, Deehan, Butterworth and Crook ahead of this weekend's Burnley clash.
Do, for example, Alan Gow and Wes Hoolahan occupy the same spaces? Does David Carney offer the kind of delivery that Cort requires? Do Sammy Clingan and Mark Fotheringham end up standing on eachother's toes?
But as Gunn readily admitted in the run-up to last weekend's away trip to Preston North End, one thing is now all but certain – fitness permitting, you build a side to service Cort's needs. He is your starting point; likewise at the back, you get as many natural-born defenders into your thinking as possible.
What you don't do is hit and hope – not yet.
There is, said Gunn, more than one way to skin a cat; going more direct doesn't mean turning ugly.
Cort's performances of late, said the City chief, had been a huge and unexpected bonus.
“Definitely – definitely,” said Gunn, now facing the challenge of his young managerial life over the course of the next three months.
“I must admit I hadn't seen a lot of Carl apart from some of the footage from the Charlton match, but the big man is six-foot three, six-foot four – and he gives you two threats.
“He can win headers or flick-ons and he's great at hold-up play – and he's got great touch. And that's something that we need to realise,” said Gunn, suggesting that the trick would be to play the ball more quickly up and into Cort; from there it goes wide and provided the ball is then delivered early and with pace, the theory is that Cort's forehead should be on the end of it.
The secret is moving the ball quickly – and more directly into the danger areas. Taking two passes instead of four. And then delivering that final ball earlier; whilst the opposition back-line is still on the half-turn.
“People have been telling us to revert to long balls – to playing ugly. But I don't see it like that,” said the City boss.
“We can still playing a passing game, but we can make the passes slighty longer – and get the ball forward slightly quicker. And it won't be ugly football – we can still play good football by doing that.
“And with someone like Carl in the team, it gives you the option to do that.”
So, are you starting to build your team-shape around Carl?
“He's the man on form at the moment,” said Gunn simply. “So you need to identify those things and use him to the best ability.
“We know that just as Jon Parkin will be a threat for them, Carl will be a threat to them – provided we get the right service is played to him and that's what we intend to do,” added the Canary chief, prophetic words indeed. He was and Norwich didn't, was the trouble at Deepdale.
“Hopefully, it won't be ugly – it'll be progressive. And we will get into attacking areas quicker than we might have done in the past.”
If that kind of 'progressive' thinking has carried on this week, the one to watch could well be Carney whose early delivery into the box should have seen Jamie Cureton finish off Wolves at Molineux.
The fact that the Australian international didn't start at Deepdale probably owed as much to his round-the-world in three days routine in midweek as anything else – and all for the sake of three minutes of World Cup qualifying football.
Back in the Mother Country for a full week's training – and now with 60 minutes of Reserve team action under his belt – the on-loan Sheffield United winger could be in line for his first start this weekend; that at least would give a set shape with Gunn matching like-for-like left and right.
And it ought to give Cort the kind of early service he craves.
After that it will be just a case of where Hoolahan and Gow fit and whether or not Sammy Clingan shrugs off his thigh trouble in time to make the Burnley game; that and, of course, seeing how the ex-Essex scaffolder Cody McDonald finds his first, full week of professional training.
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