David Cuffley Striker Jamie Cureton has switched dressing rooms dramatically ahead of Norwich City's Championship clash with Barnsley - after being recalled from his loan spell in Yorkshire.

David Cuffley

Striker Jamie Cureton has switched dressing rooms dramatically ahead of Norwich City's Championship clash with Barnsley - after being recalled from his loan spell in Yorkshire.

Within hours of manager Glenn Roeder's sacking, the 33-year-old forward was on his way back to the Canaries instead of staying at Oakwell to complete a three-month stay.

Under the terms of his loan, Cureton would not have been eligible to play for Barnsley at Carrow Road on Saturday, but now he can play against them.

City would not disclose who had made the decision to bring back Cureton, with only head of recruitment Bryan Gunn and goalkeeping coach Tommy Wright left from the senior management team after the dismissal of Roeder's first team coaches, Paul Stephenson and Adam Sadler. Sadler arrived just five weeks ago after losing his job at Newcastle.

Cureton was City's leading scorer last season with 14 goals in all competitions. However, his last goal for the club was in the 5-1 win over Colchester in March and he has started just three matches this season.

His last appearance for the Canaries came in the 3-2 home defeat by Swansea in November, when he came on as a substitute.

He made eight appearances for Barnsley, scoring twice.

Before learning of his recall, Cureton gave his reaction to Roeder's dismissal.

“The board feel today's the right time to do it and hopefully someone can come in and get us out of trouble now,” he said.

He said he had kept in touch with his City team-mates during his time at Oakwell.

“It's been difficult. I speak to them all the time and they've found it very hard,” he said in a Sky Sports News interview. “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.”

Asked what had gone wrong at Norwich, he 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 - and 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.”

As for Roeder, Cureton 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.

“I don't think there were any major big clashes between the players and him.”

He said of his time at Barnsley: “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.”