A freezing cold winters day saw the usual large away following travel to East Anglia for a relegation six pointer. During the pre match drink among the R's fans it seemed we were all confident of a good result. The atmosphere was good as we entered the stadium until the teams were read out. I can't begin to explain the frustrations of seeing Steve Morrow back in the side. Mark Perry had done an excellent job in the center of midfield on Wednesday and should have been allowed to continue with Baraclough moving out to the wing back role. Despite the initial fears we started the game well.

Kiwomya was causing problems with his movement and Wardley and Langley were looking lively in midfield. Norwich were on the back foot and we had several chances to go in front. Our first real chance came through a mins up in defence when Langleys free kick was headed towards his own net by Kenton and Marshall pulled off an excellent save.

Norwich had a few chances themselves but were off target with their shooting and we looked very comfortable. Wardley almost gave us the lead when Kiwomya did well to find Crouch and his pass to Wardley saw him hit an excellent first time shot which was tipped over the bar.

Kiwomya was getting stick from the crowd all game and was soon getting involved in trouble.

A terrible tackle on him by Kenton saw the defender booked and he should have been sent off second later as Kiwomya and Kenton were involved in a shoving match. Kiwomya was booked but as both players were guilty another yellow should have been shown to Kenton. After this Kiwomya spent a lot of the game involved in shirt tugging and arguing with Kenton and his performance suffered.

We were on top but needed a goal and the longer the half went Norwich came into the game. Morrow had started well but soon began to run around in circles and neither played a holding role or anything of use to the side as we may as well start with ten men than play this idiot in future. The more we were pushed back the more they looked like scoring and a long ball by Kenton was cleared by a very weak Crouch header and Roberts crossed for Abbey to finish well. It was Abbeys first goal for the club, why is they always get their first goals against us?

Abbey nearly scored again four minutes later when he went past Jermaine Darlington and sent a shot just over the bar. So half time and changes needed to be made and thankfully Morrow was taken off for Koejoe. We went 4-3-3 with Perry in midfield but and we had a lot of possession. We didn't create to much and it was very frustrating as the forwards lost everything in the air and the lack of movement by Koejoe and Crouch meant the midfield had nothing to aim for.

Langley was at the heart of everything we did again today and his shot was well saved again by Marshall. A bloke a few rows back from me shouted "Come on Langley you owe us for costing us the game on Wednesday". How Langley cost us a game we won is a mystery but he was having his usual good game. Perry and Wardley were also doing well in midfield but the front three lacked any real threat as the long ball game was easily dealt with by Norwich and the only times we passed it we created space for Darlington to cross but his crossing was abysmal today.

Our best chance came when Marshall punched the ball straight to Wardley but he rushed his shot and it went well over the bar when he should have scored. Crouch also missed a very good chance when Koejoe did very well to put him clean through but his shot was pathetic and went wide. Ngonge came on for Perry as we went 4-2-4 but we still created very little and we began to get outnumbered in midfield as Norwich saw out the game comfortably.

The last few minutes were very bizarre. The ref went off for treatment three times wasting over 5 minutes of time. Four mins were shown on the board and despite another stoppage where it took the bloke two minutes to book a player he blew up as we were on the attack. Not that we looked dangerous but all the stoppages towards the end made sure Norwich had an easier end to the game than they should have.

Overall we played better then on Wednesday but this is still nowhere near good enough to keep us up and the singing of Sleepy Jean brought back may bad memories of relegation that look set to be repeated if things don't improve soon.

1. Ludo : Made a few good saves but his distribution was poor. 6/10

22. Darlo : Come on Jermaine, you are so much better than this, his crossing was awful and I would have taken him off for Bruce who despite being rubbish can at least out a cross in. 5/10

3. Bara : Did ok today, solid yet unspectacular. 6/10

18. Carlisle : Struggled again against Roberts but was one of the better players again. 6/10

17. Plummer : Defended well but Norwich didn;t really cause us to many problems to test him. 6/10

24. Mark Perry : A Very good game and my Man of the Match, worked very hard and used the ball well. 8/10

21. Langley : Won tackles, passed the ball well and hit a few good shots. Can't ask much more of him really. 7/10

4. Morrow : Not worth the effort to speak about. 3/10

27. Wardley : I thought he had a decent game today. Should have scored but worked very hard and just gave the ball to the better players around him. Will always make mistakes better than Morrow. 7/10

28. Crouch : A strange game for Crouch. One minute he would hold up the ball turn and pass well then next he was giving the ball away cheaply. Needs to win more in the air and should have scored but needs some decent crosses into the box if we are going to get more out of him. 6/10

11. Kiwomya : Started very well and looked up for it but faded in the second half. 6/10

31. Koejoe : Like Crouch he did some good things and some poor. He needs to be a little quicker on the ball as he was easily caught by the Norwich defenders at times. 6/10

9. Michel Ngonge : Didn't do much and missed a very good chance at the death. 5/10