Iwan Roberts: City can't afford to extend this run

The last time was when Daniel Farke’s team lost to Derby, Wolves and Bolton.

Back then City went seven games without a win, losing five of them - Dean Smith’s team can ill afford to go on a similar run, otherwise top two is going to be very difficult to achieve.

Before Tuesday’s 1-0 home defeat by Luton I saw comments on social media that if Norwich are going to win automatic promotion they have to be beating the likes of little Luton Town!

Going into the game, Nathan Jones’s men had lost one of their last 10 league games, they’d beaten QPR 3-1 on Saturday and taken 10 points from their previous four away games. It was never going to be a matter of just turning up and it would be job done!

Carlton Morris scored his sixth of the season for the Hatters and decided not to celebrate his winning goal and I honestly don’t get it. Yes, I get the fact he started his career with Norwich, but he never really broke into the first team. He played one game for the club before being sold to Barnsley. He’s scored 52 goals in his career and celebrated every one of those - apart from one!

Maybe Norwich’s lack of quality that we have seen, and I have argued about it in recent weeks, has caught up with them. They are not grinding results out, they are not defending as well as they were. There are little mistakes, they are not closing down, they are giving opposition players too much time on the ball to put quality into the box. Do that and you will get punished.

These next two are not going to be far away by the end of the season.

Sheffield United are a really good side. I like Hecky (manager Paul Heckingbottom) . He wasn’t at Carrow Road for long but he was a good lad, he settled in really well, loved a night out – we had a good group, a good dressing room and he fitted in straight away. I would never have thought he would go on to become a coach or manage, but he has done ever so well. It’s his second time in charge at Sheff U and they obviously enjoy working with him – but maybe it is a good time to play them. They’ve not won in five games, they lost at Coventry in midweek, they couldn’t beat Birmingham, QPR or Blackpool at home, and they lost up at Stoke.

Norwich just need to put an end to this poor run – the last time they lost three Championship games in a row was a while ago but in these next two games we will get a fair measure of where Norwich are as a team because they are coming up against two good sides, two organised sides, I think two sides with completely different footballing philosophies. Sheff U are more in your face, quite physical, they have a certain way of playing.

I was very impressed by Burnley, who I saw beat Swansea 4-0 last weekend. They are young - I think he has the youngest team in the division, he has used the loan market really well, he has pace in wide areas – and they have Jay Rodriguez up front who will score you goals.

Burnley's dangerman Jay Rodriguez (Image: PA Wire/PA Images)

They will be testing games for Norwich, but they need to start performing now. They can’t keep grinding results out – in a 46-game season it catches up with you and it looks as if it has done that now.

As a player I don’t think coming back with a draw from Sheff U or Burnley – who have lost only one all season and are the division’s top scorers – would be the end of the world.

Burnley have been the best team I have seen. I would have said the best would have been Swansea. I’ve seen them play some fantastic stuff, but having seen Burnley beat them on Saturday, they were very, very good.

I saw a stat the other day that no team in Europe has had more possession than Burnley. Now, it is alright having lots of possession, it is what you do with it that matters. But Burnley are also joint top scorers in the division with 25, alongside Bristol City – they don’t just keep the ball for the sake of it; there is an end product.

The head coaches who throw possession stats at you ... no use if you have lost. It is what you do with the ball. For some teams it is as if they have got to get 40 passes in before they put the ball in.

WALNUT WHIP?

I was at Wigan recently when the start of the game against Cardiff was delayed because of a problem with the goalposts.

Basically, one goal was bigger than the other one. I was sat in the stand, it was five minutes to kick-off and the teams hadn’t come out. There had been no announcement.

They eventually came out and the game started 15 minutes late – afterwards we found out the goal to the left of the press box was higher than the one to the right. It would have taken a couple of hours to swap them so both managers had a chat with the referee and agreed that no one had an advantage, so they decided to play the game.

Then there was a similar issue at Hull on Sunday ahead of their game against Birmingham on Sunday – one goal was two inches too high and the groundsman got out a hacksaw to sort it out.

I don’t think it is a coincidence that these incidents have happened at stadiums where rugby league games are played.

I would have though most stadiums have spare goalposts so why not just take them out, or the goals the keepers warm up in front of, and put them in?

There’s a lot that needs to be right before you start a game – if the ref isn’t hooked up to his officials you can’t start. That happened at Leeds v Arsenal and recently Watford v Swansea.

I know there are very good reasons to get it all right – imagine if one decision had to be made that ended up in controversy because the technology wasn’t working. Think back to Aston Villa v Sheffield United, the first game back after lockdown in the summer of 2020. Sheff U were denied a goal because Hawkeye wasn’t working. Villa got a point from the game – and finished the season a point above the drop zone...

Can’t say I have been involved in games delayed by uneven goals or technology failures, although I went to Portsmouth with Norwich when the floodlights failed.

My experiences have been more old school - I remember going to the old Wigan ground, Springfield Park, with either Norwich or Huddersfield.

About an hour and a half before games kick off you always go and have a look at the surface, and there was a massive dog turd in the centre circle. I thought, what the hell is going on here? I couldn’t believe it - a big walnut whip in the middle of the centre circle.

But we won and I scored so...