Beating West Ham could get us relegated.....

[HampsteadCanary 0]

...the next fixture, not the last one! If we lose against City and then West Ham, Hughton really wouldn''t have a leg to stand on. He''s had plenty of chances to build on that good second half performance at West Ham, and the various 45 minute displays in different matches such as Man U, Crystal Palace, Cardiff, but he''s proven time and time again that he cannot get any consistency out of his players.team.

Is it about selection, tactics or purely motivation? The players seem up for it, looking at Tettey, Russ Martin, Snodgrass, all players who play with their hearts on their sleeves. I think the manager has done himself a disservice in abandoning his 4-3-3 or 4-1-4-1 or whatever it was that we used against Stoke, because we DO still have the players to play that system when Howson/Pilkington/Tettey/RVW/Turner are out.

Look at teams like Newcastle, Southampton, Everton - they have a team philosophy and an approach that wins them games and scores goals. Yes they have more money than us, but there''s no reason we can''t have an identity as a team, and at the moment, we don''t have that. The 4-3-3 was the closest we got to our club''s fine tradition of attacking, passing football and through injury, Hughton couldn''t pick his first 11. He could, however, have persevered with the tactics that were starting to make us move the ball around, create chances, control possession and press the opposition into mistakes. Its so simple its unbelievable that we''ve ended up playing a few matches with two off the shoulder out of form strikers, and two deep lying CMs. Surely he should have just brought Johnson in for Tettey and MADE him stay deep, and brought Wes in for Howson. Simple! Keep the successful shape the same, keep the tactics the same, and use the like for like players in the squad, and keep the out of form players on the bench!

Sorry for the rant! That''s all we seem to be able to do as Norwich fans at the moment. I will be watching the City game, and hoping that Hughton has figured out how to get back to that defensive resolve we saw so much of last season....