It's lights, camera, action tonight as City take to the stage for a match packed with excitement and nervous tension. But manager Bryan Gunn says the 25,000 Canaries fans who are expected to rock Carrow Road to its foundations may have to temper their feelings with patience - and wait and see which Norwich City team turns up.

It's lights, camera, action tonight as City take to the stage for a match packed with excitement and nervous tension.

But manager Bryan Gunn says the 25,000 Canaries fans who are expected to rock Carrow Road to its foundations may have to temper their feelings with patience - and wait and see which Norwich City team turns up.

Will it be the one which put Cardiff to the sword and ran roughshod over Watford, or the one which capitulated at home to Sheffield Wednesday and Coventry?

An early goal against Watford a fortnight ago set the trend for the rest of the game, but Gunn isn't promising a repeat.

“Who knows? We tend to do things in different ways,” he said. “If we can score in the first minute and hang on to a slender lead or if we can score a couple of goals to make things comfortable.

“I'd love to score four in the first half like Plymouth did against Coventry a few weeks ago, but that might not happen and certainly not against a team like Reading.

“So patience will have to be there and if we do score early the crowd might have to be patient with us because we might not be going out all guns blazing in attack that got us into that position, but we will try and win the game. How we win it? I'd love to be able to map it out beforehand but it doesn't normally happen like that.”

City need a win, that much is obvious, but Gunn has to get it spot on tactically against a Reading side still in with a chance of automatic promotion: gung-ho might be great to watch, but it would open City up to danger at the back.

“Tactically we need to be setting up offensively and looking to go forward on as many occasions as we can and threaten the Reading goal and then defensively we also need to be mindful that they have got some very good strikers who have been quite prolific this season,” he said.

“I just feel we need the 14 who take the field to be at the top of their game, but looking back they have been in these type of games earlier in the season so I think the motivation will be there to go out on the pitch.

“The backing from the fans will be there. It would be a special evening, Monday night at Carrow Road and we have the added extra of having the live cameras here as well so players will want to go out and do their best in those circumstances.”

Gunn believes from his own experiences that the cameras can have a beneficial effect.

“You tended to go out and do well and show what a good player you were, so that's an opportunity for the lads to do that,” he said.

“A lot of people are scratching their heads and saying, 'how, why are Norwich in the position they are?' Obviously Monday night will give the players an opportunity to answer some of those questions and maybe put on a performance that will help us stay in the Championship.”