Chris Lakey It's D-Day for Norwich City today as the Canaries face up to the biggest battle of a tumultuous campaign. Carrow Road will give its final salutes to Dion Dublin and Darren Huckerby on a day when defeat is out of the question and three points an absolute necessity.

Chris Lakey

It's D-Day for Norwich City today as the Canaries face up to the biggest battle of a tumultuous campaign.

Carrow Road will give its final salutes to Dion Dublin and Darren Huckerby on a day when defeat is out of the question and three points an absolute necessity.

Victory over Queens Park Rangers guarantees Championship survival - anything else and City will be forced to fight another, agonisingly nervous, day.

City fans are braced for a nerve-jangling 90 minutes at Carrow Road, which will be awash with all sorts of emotions, from the farewells to the retiring Dublin and the possible last home outing for the talismanic Huckerby to the very real danger the Canaries find themselves in with just 180 minutes of football to play.

Manager Glenn Roeder has called on another sell-out crowd to inspire his team to the most vital victory of the season - and avoid a nervous finale at Hillsborough in eight days time.

Dublin's retirement, under any other circumstances, would simply have added to the occasion this afternoon, but City's predicament as well as Huckerby's future is weighing heavily on the minds of supporters.

But Roeder insists those issues need to be put firmly into the background today.

“It is all about Norwich, first, second and third,” he said. “Dion is a big enough personality not to let him being involved in his last couple of games have any adverse effect on the team.

“I have not heard anyone mention it this week, no one, obviously including Dion, which he wouldn't anyway. But I haven't heard any of the players talking about it. It is not his last game anyway - there are two games left of the season.

“It's not just Darren Huckerby - there are lots of players whose contracts are up. It is the last thing on our minds at the moment and it should be the last thing on Darren's mind and everybody's mind.

“There is always a time and place for everything in life and this is not the time and place to be talking about retirements or contracts up, because we don't want to take our eye off the ball, what our goal is this week.

“There is only one thing that counts, there are no other stories other than us, Norwich, winning this game of football. Everything else comes second by a long way. There is no other story.”