Perky Canary

We''ll have a poor first, not creating much and we''ll get through an onslaught coming out at half time 1-0 down. Then Pilkington we''ll level us, with Wolfswinkle netting the winner late on. A man can dream, 2-1.

The reason why I went for Wolfswinkle rather than Hooper, is because he is more used to the lone striker role, rather than Hooper who I think performs better with a foil playing just behind him. I thought went we played the 4-3-3 Wolfswinkle was exceptional with linking the play and taking pressure away from the defence, while he didn''t offer as much of a goal threat, I felt he was still gelling and didn''t fall in place as quickly as Fer and the others, and the injury has obviously stopped that as well. I still believe he can make a huge impact, but you can see he is low on confidence, and can feel the pressure because expectations were, and still are high. But to me he looked more comfortable as the lone striker and that is why I would choose him over Hooper. As for defending, I wouldn''t ask too much from Redmond as he would be the main source for the counter attack, so instead let Snodgrass drop in and Johnson come across to help Olsson. Or play Pilkington instead who for me is an in-between Gutierrez and Redmond, offering more defence quality than Redmond, but more attacking quality than Gutierrez.

For me, we can compete, and maybe come away with something against Man City if we play 4-3-3. The one formation that had that spark, that excitement, the one where we competed against Arsenal and Chelsea so well. Injuries however derailed this and upset the system. But with Tettey back, I think this is how we need to set up against Man City. While they average 4 goals a game so far, we know there away form can be iffy, these are the games they tend to concede goals in. Demichelis is there weak point in there defence, especially on the counter attack. We have looked strong on the counter at times this season, with the 4-3-3 formation being played, Ruddy launching balls straight out to Redmond on the left who soon rushes against the oppositions defence. I''ve seen this happen numerous times and this is when we look dangerous. With Zabaleta and Clichy always bolstering down the flanks for the Sky blues, I think we could take advantage of this. If we set up like this, I think we could cause an upset...hopefully, for all our sakes. If I had to choose the starting 11, for me it would have to be: Ruddy Martin, Bennett, Bassong, Olsson Fer, Tettey, Johnson Snodgrass, Wolfswinkle, Redmond Many of you would probably disagree with me on that, but I think it could cause problems, if we come out the same we have done previously with this formation, like at Stoke, like against Southampton, and allowed us to compete against Arsenal and Chelsea. For me this is the way forward, and the way to safety.

Great result today, couldn''t be happier, well deserved as well. What ever people think of Hughton, they can''t deny when the pressure is on he does perform and the players showed real determination. Top stuff.

Ahh, yes I don''t blame you, horrible mistake on my part.

So a couple of years a go I had no interest in football what so ever, yet now I live for the weekends and thrive off of all things related to football. I used too know nothing about the game, and once my friends convinced me to go out and have a kick about, I soon fell in love with the game and began watching matches, and Norwich being my local team, I soon fell in love with the club. A couple years down the road I am yet to feel the pain of relegation that so many of you have had to suffer. Weather or not this makes me a so called "plastic" I''ll leave you too decide but through my short affair with football I have always looked at this forum, and now it has become a daily thing. But enough about me, this is about the boys in yellow and the canaries that follow them. Of course I am still a young mind when it comes to it, and most probably naive however am I wrong to think that I''m the only one that is confident we can muster up some goals and 3 points against Hull? Okay, perhaps it is optimistic to think we may score more than once, but no doubt I am convinced we are favourites for this fixture. While performances have been so inconsistent this season, even during matches we go from a top ten side to a team that look like we have been already relegated, every game that has come along which looks like could decide our destiny we have delivered the goods. The West Ham game at half time looked like the footballing gods had us buried within the bottom three, yet Mr Hughton got the boys fired up and guns blazing for a big 3 points. We could go back to last season against West Brom, so many had the game down for a loss and having to rely on other results, but again we produced when we really needed too. Personally, I do not see The Tigers as a huge threat. They are a well orgasnised team and tend to play good football when they have possession, however they do lack a real goal threat. Much like ourselves last season, and they may have brought in reinforcements with likes of Shane Long and Jelavic, but I am still not convinced these will cause us problems. I do not claim to be a "Hughton inner" by any means, although I think its far too late for him to be sacked at this stage, I have always said I believe he will not get us relegated, purely because whenever we really need a result just to carry us through another 3 weeks without a result, he has come up with the goods, and I can''t see us being let down this time. Admittedly this is nothing but hope and optimism, but its something our fans are really lacking at the moment and again I can''t understand why there is so much, but maybe that is down to my lack of experience. While it is clear the christmas period has taken its toll on Leroy Fer, I can see him coming back into form this week, especially if Tettey is back by his side. I have faith in the team, and I have faith Hughton can provide another key result.

Redmond is having a medical today I believe, I''m friends with Neil Adam''s son who I saw Saturday and he said that Redmond is having a medical today and I did question it and he says that he was told by Neil Friday night. Weather he is speaking truth or not we will see.

Ruddy is confirmed to be in the squad Sunday.

I agree with every word you''ve said, very good post. However I give it a matter of time before someone tries to shoot down the positivity, I thought I was still the only one that was happy with Hughton and the job he''s done.

One one hand I understand your frustration to not have Holt starting, but on the other hand I think Hughton might be trying to outsmart Swansea. I wouldn''t be surprised if the Swans have come up with a bit of a plan to stop Holt with his goal record against them, and so maybe he''s leaving him on the bench for this reason, but what do I know?

I watched the game at the Liberty Stadium and I would say we were very dominate overall, yes Swansea clearly had a bad game and weren''t up to there standards and again they haven''t been recently. But they won''t be worrying about relegation and with a cup under there belts I''d imagine they''re feeling rather settled and not putting so much into every game, and one thing I think that not even the most frustrated of fans can say that Norwich don''t give it there all every game because from what I''ve seen there are few teams that look they are really giving it 110% every game and we''re one of them. With this, I haven''t seen so much media as I have done this week about our lack of goals thus I think the team are really going to push high up the pitch, press the ball well when not in possession and really strive to get the ball in the back of the net, I can see us netting at least twice - without playing 2 strikers. I know a lot of people on this board feel we should be playing with two strikers, however with the extra man being in midfield it gives us more control over the middle of the park which I don''t think many people  tend to think about when wishing for the extra man up top. However, I do agree in some sense as to having 2 up top for that extra man to aim for when whipping a cross in (which I think will be vital for us in scoring against Swansea) but I also think we need Hoolahan on the pitch as he is vital in going forward for us. I also believe Swansea lack strength and a bit of brute force in there team which ours rely on heavily. With players such as Turner, Bassong, Holt, Becchio, Kamara, Johnson, even all the Scots we have in our team, I think the Swans will struggle against them - which is why I believe we were so dominate away to them. We also have a very good record against them in the top flight which I believe is down to this factor. However, they can compete against this with there confidence and quality on the ball, that in some ways we lack, but we dealt with this well at the Liberty, maybe not so much in the second half where we began to tire, but I still don''t think we would have conceded without my final statement.Mark Bunn. At the time he was only just coming into the side after Ruddys unfortunate injury, and he was clearly lacking confidence and hadn''t fully fitted into the squad. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sx2xdThWV0E - From watching this video, you can clearly see this in him while watching the Swansea''s goals. He isn''t sure weather to come for balls, and his reactions were just a little slow. But since then he has been excellent in the sticks for us, not too the likes of Ruddy, but done just as good as job I feel. And I don''t doubt that Hughton will be bringing him back in after his unfortunate suspension and I think he will be fired up and ready to make up for mistakes (or the refs) on Saturday, just like the rest of the team.So I believe the team will really set our for this one and really want to get the crowd going that they have failed to do in recent home games. Feel free to reply with your opinions, I may have missed points that could prove me wrong and I''d be interested in hearing them. On the ball city!

I''m a person that tends to worry a lot, and however hard I try to look at the positives, there''s always doubt in my mind that seems to overshadow everything else. However, with the end of the season looming and with a lot of fans there are frustrated/panicking with where Norwich is in the table, if you take a step back and look at everything then I''d say we don''t need to worry.The frustration I feel at times myself due to the "lack of ambition" that comes across when watching a game, Newcastle at home for example. Although we clearly could have taken advantage of that game and taken all 3 points, I personally feel that we shouldn''t be worrying too much about missed points from this game, and games against QPR, Southampton etc because realistically we would have never thought we would have gained points against Manchester United and the might Gunners - but we did and what points we may have unfortunately dropped, we gained from these two games. As for our most recent game against Wigan, again I felt the same frustration and disappointment as many of you. But again taking a step back, this is Wigan, a team that always comes into form during the final stages of the season, and before the game I myself was saying "this is a game we must not lose". This was however without taking into account all factors. We have 4 games at home still to play which are all winnable, and although I would love it if the team could get wins from all 4 of these games, realistically I see us winning 1/2 of them and drawing the rest. This would put us in a healthy position in the table, especially if results go our way.Now the importance of this post was to look at things realistically but I am optimistic that we may even get a point from either Arsenal or Manchester City just because we are hard to beat under Hughton. While many of people don''t like the way he sets out the team or his tactical approach and many of you slate him for it, I think under Lambert we would be very much in the drop zone this year. I think all the games we have drawn and settled for a point this season, we would have lost under Lambert because the only thing keeping us in the mix was the amount of goals we could score. However, I think that our strikers still wouldn''t have scored many more this season under Lambert, even if Holt had that striking partner he likes. As much as I love Holt everyone can see he has lost a bit of edge about him and we can all attempt to work out why but we will never know, and I doubt Holt himself even knows. Furthermore we need to try and stay as positive as we can and with the 4 easily winnable games it isn''t as difficult too as some people claim it is. They say we are fighting with Sunderland now to stay away from that 3rd spot in the drop zone. Well if that was the case then I can say that stats show we would be favorites to stay out of it because no team that has sacked there manager in the last ten games of the season has managed to avoid the drop. (I haven''t checked that fact myself just heard it from a reliable source, feel free to question it and prove me wrong). Although some of you seem to think that Di Canio is the man for the job for Sunderland, he may dominate in the lower leagues, this is the Premier League. There if a big difference between the two.Finally the team are clearly confident that they can stay up and finish on a high. Robert Snodgrass done a Q & A on twitter yesterday and someone asked him, "Do you think we will stay up and where do you think we will finish?" and he replied "Don''t worry we will stay up. 11th.". You could reply to this and say well ofcorse he would say that, he doesn''t want to worry the fans etc. but if he didn''t think that then he could easily just ignore the question. He and the team know they have winnable games coming up. If the team is confident they can do it, then so am I. So should all of us. Realistically we will lose 2 games of our next 7, and I''m optimistic and say we will only lose 1 of those 7. Just my opinion, and I think its a realistic one.

I''m feeling confident, or maybe just hopeful of a 2-0 win to City.