City's rip-roaring farewell to August may have been at the root of their September slump, manager Nigel Worthington has argued. A 5-1 home victory over Barnsley put the Canaries in second place in the Coca-Cola Championship at the end of the month, and suggested they had finally shrugged off the failures of last season.

City's rip-roaring farewell to August may have been at the root of their September slump, manager Nigel Worthington argued yesterday.

A 5-1 home victory over Barnsley put the Canaries in second place in the Coca-Cola Championship at the end of the month, and suggested they had finally shrugged off the failures of last season.

But, as City look for their first league win in five matches against Burnley on Sunday- with the pressure heaped on the manager by Monday's statement from majority shareholders Delia Smith and Michael Wynn Jones calling for an immediate improvement in the team's performances - Worthington said the rave reviews of the Barnsley game had perhaps given his players a false sense of security.

He said: “The group of players that we've got performed well, played very well, worked very well, got good results from the first month.

“Against Barnsley we had an OK performance but had an outstanding result and I think there were a lot of things written and said, a lot of things believed through that game. The mind plays silly games at times and I think we just got off the beaten track of where we were.

"We thought we could maybe just pass our way through teams and win games. You can't do it. We've got to do the ugly side, which is the hard work, and then go and perform what we're good at and that's passing the ball.

“I think in the last two or three games we got it the wrong way round and put the cart before the horse and we've not got the results, but we're still six points behind second place.

"We've had a bad month as far as results - Coventry, Plymouth, Palace. We've got to focus to getting back to where we were in that first month, winning all the individual battles before we can win the war.

“Training is first class, the work ethic is first class, but we haven't been seeing the performance level of the training ground in games, so we need to put that right.

“To be honest, I'm not bothered by the response in training. I'll be looking for the response in the game on Sunday. It's as simple as that.

“Your training is your rehearsal for the big stage. In the last couple of weeks, we've left the big performances on the training ground and we've got to get the big performances on the main stage.”