Canaries skipper Adam Drury believes better times are around the corner for Norwich as Peter Grant begins to build a team in his own image.

By CHRIS LAKEY

Canaries skipper Adam Drury believes better times are around the corner for Norwich as Peter Grant begins to build a team in his own image.

Injuries and lack of numbers haven't exactly smoothed the path into management for Grant, but Drury believes time is still on City's side.

There are now three clear weeks, with no midweek games, for players to shake off any lingering injuries, for work to be done on the training field - and then for new players to add to the squad at the turn of the year.

“We have a ridiculously small squad to be honest,” said Drury. “Obviously that's not the gaffer's fault at the minute because he can't bring players in, so in January hopefully there will be faces coming in. You need that at any club, you need the bodies so you have people who are fresh when they come into the team.

“Hopefully things will pick up then.

“We should have some time coming up to get people who have been injured back and get competition for places again, and it also gives the gaffer more time to do a bit more work on the training ground because I think he is big on playing two up front so we will do a bit of work on that as well.”

In the meantime City work with what they have and Drury believes that if that means playing ugly, then so be it - as they had to at Sunderland.

“In this league you are not always going to get pretty games and be allowed to play your football and everyone knows that and I thought today we did it better in terms of battling,” he said. “It wasn't pretty and sometimes the ball did just have to be helped on, or put in behind or cleared up front, and that's the way it was going to be. We didn't create a lot but I don't think they did either.

“I didn't think there was much in the game, to be honest. It was a scrappy game, a 0-0 game and there wasn't anything really in the way of clear-cut chances. By half-time we got their crowd against them a little bit and I thought we were doing alright, but we end up losing the game.

“I thought everyone put in a good shift in terms of battling and putting their foot in. That's the sort of game it was and everyone stood up and was counted today - it was a good performance.

“We have played worse and won before.”