CHRIS LAKEY When Norwich City beat Tamworth in the third round of the FA Cup, the assumption was that it would help turn around the league form.

CHRIS LAKEY

When Norwich City beat Tamworth in the third round of the FA Cup, the assumption was that it would help turn around the league form.

The home defeat by Plymouth a week later proved that it didn't - which is why Peter Grant will stick with the tried and trusted mantra of it being “one game at a time” when City travel to Blackpool for their fourth round clash today.

“We played QPR and we did so well, we played Crystal Palace and I thought we played ever so well, even though we lost the game, and I thought the way we conducted ourselves throughout the whole Tamworth thing would be the catalyst for the next home game,” said Grant. “And then we were very poor.

“That's why, and it's an old football cliche which I use a lot, the next game is the most important one. That one is dead and you learn from it. But it proves to us that we can't focus away and look to what happens next - we are only concerned about Blackpool.

“If that is the catalyst, the springboard to push us on, I would be absolutely delighted, but I am only concerned about Blackpool and getting through to the next round of the cup, and then the next game will concern itself.

“That is the way you have to be - you have to be single-minded and I think that is the way you have to approach it as a player, as a coach, as a manager.”

Fans were baffled as to why a professional job at Tamworth, in front of a BBC audience waiting for a Championship side to slip in the mud, was followed by a dismal home showing against Plymouth - but that's been the nature of the Norwich City beast this season.

“That is a question we have had with the group - because the lack of consistency has been awful, there's no getting away from that,” said Grant. “And that consistency to make us a good team of players is what it takes. There are four or five fundamentals and if we don't do one of them properly we will struggle and we have proved that.

“We have had no betweens - a very good performance and then an awful performance and there has been very little in between.

“We have had periods in games, but over the 90 minutes it has not been good enough and not consistent enough.

“As soon as we step below that line we suffer, and it's a very fine line. As soon as we've even been on the line it's not been good enough. That's why I am saying, you try and have these fundamentals that are ingrained in you, about the way you are playing, constantly, and you have to do the same things. If we don't do them well we will struggle because of the group of players we have.”