Like nearly everyone else, I think Peter Grant has done some cracking transfer deals this summer and some passion has finally been returned to the jersey.

Like nearly everyone else, I think Peter Grant has done some cracking transfer deals this summer and some passion has finally been returned to the jersey.

As fans, on the whole we accept that the team will take time to gel, that players need to find their feet and that things will take time. What we also are very aware of is that the season covers some eight months and teams can very quickly go up and down the league.

Whilst slow starters tend not to make the automatic promotion spots, teams on relegation form can soon find themselves in the play-offs having strung a few decent wins together.

The way that our squad has been restructured during the summer is, on the face of it, a very accomplished job that Grant has completed - and in doing so I'm sure he has reduced the ludicrous wage bill by a substantial amount.

Grant said in his Evening News column a week or so ago that at £1.5m Dickson Etuhu was the buy of the summer.

Now, there are many fans that would argue he was sale of the summer, but that aside I have to risk a black fingernail by offering up the suggestion that Grant forgot what was under his nose.

Robert Earnshaw was the most selfish striker that I had seen in a Norwich shirt for a very long time. He may have somersaulted to the top of the goal-scoring charts, but his conversation rate was hardly good, and he persistently failed to play the ball to a better-placed player.

Did he get a public telling off like Jamie Cureton? Or like Lee Croft, or like Darren Huckerby for that matter?

Public slating is something I do not appreciate - I don't think it's professional and it shouldn't happen. Strikers are, by their very nature, selfish, and the more confident a striker is, the more selfish he tends to be. Perhaps Grant's outburst on Cureton said more about David Strihavka than about the recipient of the criticism.

But I'm glad Cureton thought he could score, just as I'm glad he didn't lay the ball off for both goals against Southampton.

We've scored with nearly every shot on goal so far - Grant was right in saying that our football is still in first gear. But thanks to Cureton, our promotion hopes aren't.

So far, the momentum that his goals have given us, the mood within the camp that our four points and a Carling Cup win has given us and the passion for the jersey is absolutely priceless. As far as I'm concerned, Cureton's biggest problem is that he isn't Scottish, Welsh or Irish.

If he was we'd have shelled out millions or he'd be in the Premiership.

Etuhu - the best buy of the summer? You're havin' a wee jest, aren't you, Mr Grant?

w Carrow Road will host the NCISA annual meeting on September 6. However, the club has informed us that the venue will now be The Business in the Jarrold Stand.

Due to a change of procedure within the club, we are unfortunately unable to announce the line-up of players attending the forum until the week before.