Canaries expert Neil Adams believes Norwich City should be able to attract the best manager on the market - but he has to work immediate miracles to stave off the threat of relegation.

Canaries expert Neil Adams believes Norwich City should be able to attract the best manager on the market - but he has to work immediate miracles to stave off the threat of relegation.

Names already being mentioned range from former City men Aidy Boothroyd and Mark Robins, to Joe Royle, Dean Saunders and Bryan Gunn. And Adams believes it's a good opportunity for someone.

"There are bundles out there - Boothroyd and vastly experienced managers like Alan Curbishley, Alan Pardew, Iain Dowie and Ian Holloway. Would someone be able to turn Norwich down? They are probably the third best supported club in the division, they fill the place every week - I think it's a job people should give their right arm for now. You would hope there would be massive interest in it and that Norwich go out and get the right guy.

"I haven't got a favourite - Aidy has been here before and knows the way the club works and he will probably be the favourite, perhaps the obvious choice - but rarely do we get the obvious choice. We just want somebody who can salvage this season. I think the primary thing you have to look is time, and Norwich have not got time now. The paramount importance is to get somebody in, whoever it is, to get the results.

"The next three games will probably decide the season and that again is probably something that influenced the board to act like they did because Saturday's game at home to Barnsley is massive - as are the following two against Southampton and Doncaster.

"Unlike previous times where you have had a bit of time to think and maybe look at all the factors, someone's got to come in and in the next 19 games keep us in the division because there is a real possibility that if Norwich don't get points from these next three games then it could be irreversible.

"It hasn't come a moment too soon from a timing point of view and they have to get someone in who can work wonders immediately."

Adams, a summariser for BBC Radio Norfolk and a former Canaries winger, is a voice of experience among City observers, and believes it wasn't just performances on the pitch that got Roeder the sack.

"I think the thing that has brought it to a head was not so much results and performances, but obviously the way Glenn Roeder came across to the fans," said Adams, who had his own run-in with the manager over newspaper comments and lost his job within the club's youth set-up before being reinstated.

"Some of the things he said and the way they perceived him to be was probably just as influential in turning the tide than any of the results and the performance were.

"Everyone is entitled to respond to criticism but when he has it was the way he came back with a little bit more punch behind some of the things he was saying and people didn't really like that, they resented that."