unique

Every little helps, I suppose. Having scored just one league goal all season, he would have been odds-on to score at Carrow Road on Saturday. If a team or a player is on a run that needs breaking, Norwich don''t usually disappoint........

Ok, a table produced with a little tongue-in- cheek, but a table, if one was needed, that exonerates AN and lays the blame for Norwich''s predicament firmly at the feet of the players.

The big problem is that Sunderland also face an ''on the beach Watford'' and an ''out of sorts Everton'', and it is safe to say that right now, Chelsea are far more inconsistent than Man Utd. The fact that they are a point ahead and have a striker who knows where the back of the net is, suggests they are holding the trump cards. A demoralised Spurs with zilch to play for and key players suspended is looking a far less daunting prospect for Newcastle and their last game of the season. Norwich now very much have their backs to the wall and could do with a good slice of the fortune that Sunderland and Newcastle have enjoyed recently.

1)

This is not what ''the meeeja'' want to hear. Relegation this season is all about the demise of Villa and the sinking of a club from the north-east. Norwich City are a complete irrelevance in the footballing world and as good as relegated in the eyes of the so-called experts.

Interesting to note that apart from Whittaker, Johnson and Tettey (who no doubt would have been playing if not injured), that was the starting lineup at Wembley. It is remarkable that for all the money spent, AN falls back on the players that earned promotion to try and save the situation.

A game that typifies the season so far, sadly. Plucky, but not enough quality where it matters.

Brady - burnt out from his early season exertions.....

Giving possession away too frequently at the moment....makes the task of an equaliser so much harder.

So the majority of recent signings on the bench, and Bamford nowhere to be seen. Pretty much sums up how well the transfer money has been put to use this past twelve months.

I suspect starting with ten men against Arsenal at The Emirates is a disaster waiting to happen.........

...and the Championship table remained as it is, which team would you rather win the playoffs, or whose promotion would you find the least painful?Brighton and HughtonHull and SnodgrassDerby and Martin, Butterfield & JohnsonSheffield Wednesday and Hooper

.....but then I can''t imagine Norwich defending as well as Sunderland have....

I can''t imagine Arsenal being so toothless next week.

There is not a cat in hell''s chance that AN will be sacked if Norwich City are relegated, and that is exactly as it should be. There is a distinct possibility he may offer his resignation, but it would be rightfully refused. A shake up of the coaching staff/scouting team?....now that''s another matter altogether........

Until Saturday, I firmly believed we would stay up. However, as the players and management would repeat ad nauseous - " it''s not about the performance at his time of the season, it is all about results ", and by that criteria, Saturday was shocking. Norwich have been soundly beaten by each of the three teams below them this season, and their goal difference is now comfortably amongst the three worst - usually a good indication of which teams deserve to go down. Saturday''s performance was not on a par with the capitulation at Craven Cottage, but the result was equally as bad.

I''m guessing Middlesbrough fans will be saying that losing the final was a godsend....they''ll be supping at the top table when all the big money is sloshing around........ .....whilst Norwich will most likely be rebuilding,with a squad that will need dismantling, and dreams of establishing themselves in the PL put back a few years.....

Yesterday''s result has drastically increased the likelihood that we will be swopping places with Middlesbrough in the Championship next season. No Norwich fan would have wanted to taste defeat on the day, but maybe the PL came just too early for AN. The whirlwind months that brought the play-offs, and the euphoria that followed, misled AN into believing that his squad of players, full of PL experience, would give Norwich a head start on Watford and Bournemouth at the very least. Alas, this season has proved once again that our squad is full of players that are simply not consistently good enough to play PL football:- Ruddy, Whittaker, Bassong, Bennett, Martin, Howson, Hoolahan, Redmond, Jerome. If Norwich are relegated, none of these players, bar maybe Redmond and Howson, are ever likely to play PL football ever again. Allied to the woeful acquisitions of Mulumbu, Jarvis, Naismith, Dorrans and Pinto, it is no surprise that the few positives of Brady, Klose and Mbokani( although lacking in goals), has been nowhere near enough to maintain the PL status. If Norwich had lost the Final, AN would have learned far more about his squad of players, developed a style of play ( aka Watford and Bournemouth) that they could rely on, rather than chop and change to try and counter the opposition, and although it would not have guaranteed promotion this season, it would not have misguidedly built up the expectations of the fans that we could finally establish ourselves at the top table. One thing is for sure, Norwich have picked the wrong season to be relegated. The huge gulf is about to get a whole lot wider.

An interesting selection for Saturday - the first time he has refereed Norwich this season. He likes to keep Sunderland in order......has refereed them eighteen times in recent Premier League history........and shown them SEVEN red cards!!

Since beating Norwich, Villa have lost eight consecutive matches, scoring just three goals and conceding twenty-four. A win against Sunderland will go a long way to burying that feeble performance and poor result at Villa Park, which, more than any, has kept our relegation fears alive.

If you''re an Everton player, you''ve reached the FA Cup Final, you''ve soaked in all the hype for the previous few weeks, you''ve been fitted and suited for Cup Final day, and you have a meaningless ( to them) game of football six days before..... Human nature says you will be wary of 50/50 tackles or tweaking a hamstring, or even fully focuses on the league game. Advantage Norwich. It is quite possible that the likes of Lukaku and Barkley will be left out completely. After all, an FA Cup win might help to keep Martinez in a job. If Sunderland are in a similar fixture position, then I think Newcastle are a very strong bet to go down.

There is every likelihood that for the very last game of the season Norwich will be facing a 37 year-old goalkeeper, not currently deemed good enough to play first team football for an under-performing defence.

By a strange fate of fixture fortune, four of the six teams that Norwich have yet to play, remain in the FA Cup. Whilst the Palace game is unaffected by it, further progress in the competition may play a part in their league form. As long as West Ham don''t put a fly in the ointment, and assuming Watford can be single-minded enough to beat Palace, two out of Norwich''s last three games will be against FA Cup finalists. The best case scenario would be a Watford v Everton final, Norwich''s last two Premier League fixtures. As crucial as the next two fixtures are looking, Arsenal apart, the final three fixtures might not have fallen at a better time.

Colback banned for Norwich game. Not sure if that is a good or bad thing, he always seems like a red card waiting to happen.....

Over the last four and a half seasons, Norwich''s games against Man City are rarely short of goals. The 0-0 result at home in 2014-15 was the exception rather than the rule. The 3-2 win at the Etihad at the end of the 2012-13 season was welcome, but nevertheless thanks to exceptional circumstances.Although he has missed two and a half games from the eight since the beginning of the 2011-12 season, Aguero has scored on six occasions, scoring more than once on only one occasion, thus,(dare I say it before Saturday''s game), is no Suarez.Over the eight games, Norwich have scored nine and conceded twenty-nine, not far short of four goals a game, and the most worrying statistics are these appearances:- Martin - 8Ruddy - 7Bassong or Bennett - 7 (They both played in the last game)Ruddy and Martin suffered the 1-5 thrashing away in 2011-12, Bennett joined them for the 1-6 thrashing at home the same season.Four years hence and these same players put on a no-show in the FA Cup tie and  still form the backbone of our defence...........Have the club/managers/coaches honestly learned nothing over the past four seasons?