Chris Lakey Bryan Gunn insists the true character of his players will emerge from the dark clouds of August 8, 2009. The Canaries manager sat his squad down at the Colney training centre yesterday for a video nasty - a re-run of one of the most agonising 90 minutes of his career.

Chris Lakey

Bryan Gunn insists the true character of his players will emerge from the dark clouds of August 8, 2009.

The Canaries manager sat his squad down at the Colney training centre yesterday for a video nasty - a re-run of one of the most agonising 90 minutes of his career.

It ranks up there with the final game of last season, when City capitulated so appallingly at Charlton, and his own experience as a player, when City were thumped 7-1 at Blackburn on October 3, 1992.

There will, he promised, be no repeat.

"You don't take anything for granted," he said. "Our pre-season unbeaten run is over and we have to react to that very quickly and we have got a great opportunity to do that on Tuesday night at Yeovil in the Carling Cup.

"There are lots of teams in League One who will look at this today and think that Norwich are an easy touch and obviously I will be making sure the next team that goes out on the pitch won't be an easy touch.

"We will be competing for every ball, which we didn't do today, and we will be achieving the results that we expect.

"Tomorrow we'll sit down and have a look at the DVD of the game, and that will bring back some bad memories for the players.

"I could pick out all seven goals and find something wrong with them and we will be doing that again tomorrow when we watch the video. We will watch through all 90 minutes of the game and we will make sure that we point out where we think players have gone wrong individually and as a team. That's something that I have had to do as a player, endure the 90 minutes, of one of the worst 90 minutes of my career. I've been beaten 7-1 before as a player remember, back at Blackburn."

Gunn's team sheet for tomorrow night - and for Saturday's league game at Exeter - will make interesting reading, although he insists that his players have the character to come out of Saturday's game.

"It is down to myself, the coaching staff and the players to pick themselves up because we need to find out the character now.

"We've been going along nicely in pre-season, we've brought a lot of new players into the squad, we're still finding out about each other and hopefully we will find out very quickly who can respond to a major setback like this and I'm not doubting the character of the players I've brought in.

"The reason I've brought them in is because I feel they have got character as well as skill to make sure we will challenge in League One - obviously today that wasn't evident.

"Hopefully this is a blip and one to be erased from the memory banks.

"I believe in the players, I believe in the characters that we brought into the dressing room. They are a bunch of players now that are committed to Norwich City Football Club and they have got to work together now to try and erase this and get back the support of the supporters as well.

"It's a reality check for sure because everything has been so positive throughout pre-season and this is a big negative. We have got a new squad and this is when we find out characters, this is when we find out who will be lining up to take the field at Yeovil and overcome today's performance by wanting to go out there and win and compete and be prepared to do that.

"There are a couple of days before we get to the stage where we need to name the team, but hopefully we will find out a lot more about the individuals that we brought in, individuals that have previously been at the club, and we need to make a decision on Tuesday when we put the team sheet in to make sure we have a team that is capable of beating Yeovil in the League Cup."