Lambert keeping feet on the Ground

Despite Wednesday’s crushing defeat at Sunderland, the Canaries look to ensure Premier League survival sooner rather than later and they can rely on their potent strike force.

Norwich’s unbeaten start to 2012 came to an end at the Stadium of Light as they were blown away by Martin O’Neill’s resurgent team.

Jonny Howson 

The transfer window was a quiet one for the Canaries and the only major singing was that of Leeds United captain Jonny Howson looks a player ready to make the next step up and will learn under the tutorship of Lambert.

Despite the midweek blow fans can be confident that they will be watching Premier League football come next season. The main concern has to be at the back with only one clean sheet against Chelsea a couple of weeks ago, they have to ensure that they score more than the opposition to pick up the points. Unlike Swansea who defensively are very sound.

In Steve Morison and Grant Holt share a rare quality the fact that they can score in the top flight having done so down the leagues. Between them they have found the net on fifteen occasions and have been aided by Canadian international Simeon Jackson who has chipped in with four strikes including the winner at West Brom in the Cup last weekend.

Former Everton youngster James Vaughan has been unlucky with injuries this season and will be a useful player for Lambert to call upon as the season progresses.

At the back the centre half pairings of former Liverpool youth products Zak Whitbread and Daniel Ayala are improving and will only learn from their experiences this season. Encouragingly in between the sticks the future looks bright with three English keepers all impressing, most recently nineteen year Jed Steer who on debut produced a man of the match performance at the Hawthorns last week. 

Daniel Ayala

Lambert has the right mix of players with a British backbone the vast majority have come though the leagues together and slowly bit by bit he will add that bit of extra class or experience where required. This transfer window just gone was very much a case of if it isn’t broken don’t fix it.

A Champions League winner with Borussia Dortmund, Lambert as a player tasted success right at the top of the game. Now as a manager he is revelling in his first season in the top flight and is refreshing to see a team blended with youth and experience prosper proving that by sticking to your beliefs and through endeavour you can achieve. 

Canaries dreaming of Wembley

As Norwich City left it left to book their place in the last 16, Swansea and QPR are knocked out and left to focus on league matters.

For our three promoted clubs finding a balance between preserving league status and going for cup glory was always going to be tough. It comes as no surprise that Norwich who are the team highest up the table are now the only side left in the FA Cup of the three sides.

Darren Pratley

We will start with Swansea’s trip to Bolton, where Brendan Rodgers made a number of changes to his starting XI and play off hero Darren Pratley came back to haunt the Swans.

A great finish from Luke Moore looked to have given the Welsh side the lead at half time but in added on time, Pratley headed home, Martin Petrov’s free kick to level up the tie.

From there on Bolton took control and an error from back up goalkeeper Gerhard Tremmel gifted last year’s semi finalists the winner through Chris Eagles.

Despite rallying in the final ten minutes Rodgers’ fell short and they will return to league action against Chelsea on Wednesday, as they aim to ensure they remain clear of the trap door.

In a hotly contested lunch time kick off a dubious penalty from Juan Mata was enough to end QPR’s cup run.

Mata converted from twelve yards after Daniel Sturridge fell easily under Clint Hill’s challenge.

It had been agreed that there would be no handshakes between the two sides before the start of the game and thankfully the tie passed without much incident. Unlike Norwich and Swansea, Rangers are in serious trouble of going down and they will quickly move their focus to Wednesday night’s trip to Aston Villa.

Expect new faces come in for the game at Villa Park as Mark Hughes will look to add quality to his squad and also ship out some of the dead wood.

The one success of the cup weekend was in the Midlands as Norwich won at the Hawthorns for the second time in a number of weeks. This time it was Canadian international Simeon Jackson who struck the late winner to book a last sixteen tie at home to Championship big spenders Leicester City.

Jed Steer 

The Canaries will have been indebted to debutant keeper Jed Steer who produced a man of the match performance. He produced a number of fine saves including a sensational stop to deny Jerome Thomas.

19 year of Steer was on hand again late on to stop tie going to replay as he stopped Joe Mattock and Shane Long.

Earlier on captain Grant Holt had put Norwich ahead at the break. Mark Antoine Fortune levelled things up as he had done in the league meeting two weeks earlier.

Next up for Paul Lambert’s men is the live Sky clash with Sunderland on Wednesday as they look to extend their current six game unbeaten run.