Rick Waghorn

There are few owners who would be moved to sanction a £200,000 a week pay packet for a player who tears everyone from Spurs down apart. But it is that level of resource that Norwich and Co are matched against.

It’s woven into the very fabric of Premier League life, that events off the field can have just as much bearing on a team’s final position on it.

Hooper’s recent burst of form – in every likelihood merely a simple case of feet and range being found after a summer ruined by injury – has been fundamental to Norwich’s rise from the drop zone to the relatively calmer waters of mid-table…

Messrs Elmander and Hooper barely got a sniff last night as they ploughed their lonely furrows. The bigger chances came for the Hoolahans and the Howsons and, of course, the Johnsons of this world.

What, exactly, can £8 million can get you in the European striker market? It gets you a Loic Remy.

To yearn for the simple days of the Championship is probably the wrong way to think, but I’d make a small wager with you that for many a seasoned City punter one of the most enjoyable seasons in recent memory would be that one in the third tier of English football…

There are a host of topics around which venom is unleashed and in the midst of which the more vocal tend to try and outdo each other when it comes to the vehemence of their stance.

A trip to the Etihad this weekend is unlikely to provide much by way of immediate relief; that gulf is only widening. The trip to The Emirates proved that point; what you get for £8 mill is as nothing to what you can get for £42 mill.

…my sense is that teams of Norwich’s ilk are going into such contests lacking any real conviction that they can ever over-turn such formidable, individual talents as are arrayed before them. It’s an exercise in damage limitation; keeping it respectable; saving yourself for the real contest ahead. Like Aston Villa (h)…

Powerhouse centre-midfielders with an eye for goal command top dollar; as do lads with anything more than 15-plus goals in them – particularly when they have age on their side. Something that the luckless Holt never had.

It is an important question – because it ensures that the 14-strong mini-league come 2013-14 will be just as ugly, just as desperate and just as unappealing as it was, by and large, this…

There are always big games in any season. Particularly when a team of Norwich’s ilk is in the Premier League. Equally, there are always games that – with the passing of time – come to define a player, a time, a manager or a team. Bayern Munich (a) would do all four. And then, of […]

The point about taking in all that his research offers is just how important Premier League survival remains to a host of clubs; for whom relegation to the Championship is all-but a kiss of death given the extent to which their finances rest on sloughing about in that Premier League trough.

For what it is worth, I would still put Holt minimum top three. It hasn’t been a vintage season goals-wise for the 31-year-old. But then he has been handed an all-too often thankless task up top on his lonesome – a task that he neither asked for, nor ever shirked.

To claim them as real, ‘six-pointers’ when you are already six points clear of the drop zone is pushing it a bit, but the home games against Southampton, Reading, Aston Villa and West Bromwich Albion are where City’s fate will be decided…

Hughton banked his big points in the autumn with huge and unexpected home wins that will, eventually, go down in folklore. Digs out a couple more and Norwich will be home and dry…

You can, usually, paper over a crack or two, if one goes AWOL. On the odd occasion and against the right opposition, you can get away with missing two – particularly if their replacements step up to the plate in the manner you hope…

It is fascinating to watch. And for those with longer memories, smacks all-too much of the trials and tribulations that followed Mike Walker as he walked out of Norfolk and sought further fame and fortune at Everton – where Duncan Ferguson awaited…

“Their [Front Row] depth of experience and expertise in the field of sports brand development and marketing on a global scale will continue to help us to meet our objectives of significantly expanding Norwich City’s global footprint,” he said…

When you actually sit down and analyse the team that is holding all-comers at bay right now – and beating Manchester United and Arsenal, to boot – it might come as a slight surprise to realise that of the team that held onto to another famous, three points on Sunday only three were Lambert’s buys…