Gary Gowers

Clearly the task of getting the message across to a bunch of impressionable 17 and 18 year-olds is different to instructing a dressing room full of established Premier League players, but Adams has passion and belief.

Those who follow City home and away will have been thinking ‘what’s the fuss about… we see this every other week’, but for 25,000 to witness such a listless, lacklustre and abject performance in a game that just had to be won was hard to take.

Of course there have been plenty of away-days that were as bad – worse even – than Swansea, but following this week’s no-show it’s clear Russell Martin and co decided, on reflection, it was one let-down too many for the travelling support

Against the Swans ball retention is king. If you let them have it they will keep it all day if they feel like it. That’s how they play – their schtick. To go four v five from the word go was, even without the benefit of hindsight, suicidal. Wes found himself having to play as a traditional left-sided midfielder and Olsson’s forays forward were limited in the extreme.

In terms of a starting XI is virtually impossible to second-guess Hughton’s thoughts. If a 1-1 draw with Stoke was sufficient to prompt five changes one can only imagine his thinking following the debacle at St Mary’s

The Premier League fixtures computer has long since deemed March to be the month when City’s short-term future is decided but with one point from a possible six on the board so far, even the optimists among us – and I’ve really tried – must be wavering slightly.

A once great warrior clad in yellow and green reduced by this terrible illness to a shadow of hid former self. A proud, dignified man who literally spilled blood for the Canary cause and who was the epitome of a leader

We even looked capable of adding to the lead. Just imagine it… 2-0 up away from home, at Villa Park of all places, with brickbats raining down on the technical area occupied by him. Dreamland. Alas that’s all it was. A dream.

Lambert’s penchant for ‘grudge’ matches is well known, and documented, and his three trips to Carrow Road in a claret and blue tie have been painfully successfully

Alex Tettey, Leroy Fer and the aforementioned Johnson were immense yesterday and were the springboard upon which City’s victory was based. Terrible cliches aside, there were thirteen heroes in yellow but said trio refused to take a backward step

While it’s imperative that the issues in the final third are addressed if City are to give themselves even a chance of survival, Sunday’s game is going to be won and lost in the third inhabited by Messrs Ruddy, Olsson, Bassong, Yobo and Martin.

That said fixture takes place within the confines of the city walls makes the Pink’un’s depressing – yet rational – list of predictions ever more hard to swallow. Whatever’s happened to ‘Fortress Carrow Road’?

Whether Hughton will have seen enough from the permutation he stumbled across in the last fifteen minutes to persevere with something of that ilk remains to be seen but there appeared an urgency hitherto unseen.

There’s no point pretending it was anything other than awful – Hughton admitted as much in conversation with BBC Radio Norfolk’s Chris Goreham – and the fifteen minute interval was wholly insufficient to dissect all the wrongs…

In the aftermath of the Fulham debacle I questioned the technical ability of a few to deliver at the highest level and, while the question marks remain, there was no questioning the grit and determination on display yesterday from one to eleven when the chips were down.

For the sake of balance – and in a week that has seen the clamour for change taken to a whole new level – another of our regular ‘commenters’, Russell Saunders, has provided us with some data that supports the opposite view of caution and restraint.

I wrote at the weekend of the need for a spark. Something or someone to re-ignite a season that is currently in freefall. After watching the latest chapter of ‘the Craven Cottage massacre’ I underestimated. A single spark, as things stand, looks unlikely to be sufficient.