It was a case of never mind the quality, feel the width as far as Canaries defender Gary Doherty was concerned as he savoured victory over Charlton. Having won just once in their previous three games, despite more than commendable performances, City struggled to put away opponents whose own record is now 14 games without success.

It was a case of never mind the quality, feel the width as far as Canaries defender Gary Doherty was concerned as he savoured victory over Charlton.

Having won just once in their previous three games, despite more than commendable performances, City struggled to put away opponents whose own record is now 14 games without success.

"It was a better result," said Doherty. "In the previous two games we played fantastically but ended up with nothing and then today we had good spells, where we passed it really well and made a lot of passes. But I don't think we were really as cutting edge as we have been in recent weeks, especially in the first half.

"We were slow and we weren't getting our game going, but I thought in the second half we put some good moves together.

"It was always going to be hard fought, they're obviously battling for points, they're on a bad run, but they still showed great determination and they were always going to come here and make it hard for us.

"Their tactics were spot on really. At the start they weren't really a threat. They had the one chance but they sat in there, they dropped their strikers back quite deep to make it hard for our midfielders. Sammy (Clingan) is our playmaker, he gets things going so they got round him.

"Fair play to them, they did that well, but obviously once we scored they had to come out. You can cut teams open a bit with the players we've got and once they try and attack then obviously on the counter-attack we hurt them a few times."

Doherty was renewing his central defensive partnership with Elliott Omozusi, following the injury to John Kennedy - and once again it proved fruitful.

"It went well, they dropped quite deep so there wasn't really anything to look in behind but we're happy with our day's work," Doherty said.

"They had a lot of strikers on at the end and made it extremely difficult for us because they're chasing a point, so we're delighted with our performance. Even though it wasn't one of our better performances this season - or certainly in the last couple of weeks - it's still a good three points."

And those points came courtesy of Leroy Lita, who bagged his seventh goal in 14 City starts since his loan from Reading began back in October when he turned in the box and fired home.

"Thankfully Leroy got a fantastic finish and we managed to hold on for the 1-0," said Doherty. "He's great in the box. To get chest control around the penalty spot is very rare in this league so it shows fantastic strength and fantastic skill to do that.

"He is a massive player for us. I don't know how it's going to pan out in January. It's obviously going to be difficult to keep him, but fingers crossed we might be able to do something."

Lita has just two more games of his loan spell remaining before he returns to Reading - at Crystal Palace on Boxing Day and at home to Nottingham Forest next Sunday, and that's enough to set City on the way to a permanent change in fortunes, according got his team-mate.

"We have some massive games coming up against teams around us and we can really push free if we get in good form and keep injury clear - we have got a pretty small squad, but if we do that I'm sure we can go on a bit of a run and really try and push up this league."