Norwich City striker Jamie Cureton today told of his “shock” at Glenn Roeder's sacking.

Norwich City striker Jamie Cureton today told of his “shock” at Glenn Roeder's sacking.

Cureton, who is currently on loan at Championship club Barnsley, said he hoped the club would be able to find right person for the job following the sacking which came less than 24 hours after City's FA Cup exit at the hands of Charlton.

The 33-year-old striker said: “The board feel today's the right time to do it and hopefully someone can come in and get us out of trouble now.”

Cureton, who has scored 20 goals in 92 appearances for the Canaries over two spells at the club, said he was not aware of any problem towards Roeder from within the Carrow Road dressing room.

He said: “I don't know everyone's relationship with the manager. No one's really complained from what I know of. He's there to make decisions and that will upset people and some people will get on and not get on. That's natural under any manager. I don't think anyone's at a point where there's real dislike. Everyone just got on with their jobs and if you were picked you did your best and if you weren't you just got on with it.”

Cureton said he has been in regular contact with his team-mates since he left Carrow Road for Barnsley on a three month emergency loan at the end of November.

He said: “It's been difficult. I speak to them all the time and they've found it very hard. They're trying their best to turn things round. It's just not been happening for one reason or another.

“They've been very disappointed with how they've performed, a lot of them and they really feel that as a group of players they should be in a much higher position.”

On what has gone wrong at Norwich, Cureton said: “I'm not sure. A lot of players have left, the contracted players and the loan players are probably about equal, I don't think that helps too much. I think lack of form of players who should be performing a lot better than they have. It's just not been happening and it's just been very difficult once you get into a bad run of form to get out of it. I think that's been the major problem, really, the squad under-performing.”

While the former Championship top scorer said he would welcome a return to Carrow Road - if the new manager wanted him back.

He said: “I never really wanted to leave. I left because I wasn't getting games. I needed to go out and play which the manager let me do. I think now I've done the first month they can call me back at any stage so I suppose it depends on who comes in if he feels I can come back and do a job I'm more than happy to do that. If not, things have gone well for me at Barnsley and I can play for them. I suppose now it's down to whoever gets put in charge whether they want me back or not.”