CHRIS LAKEY Glenn Roeder says his players are taking the walk of shame every time they step out on to the streets of Norwich.The Canaries boss insists that City's current form - 11 games without a win - means his players should not be rubbing shoulders with the fans in the street and that they can only hold their heads high once they have learned how to win games of football.

CHRIS LAKEY

Glenn Roeder says his players are taking the walk of shame every time they step out on to the streets of Norwich.

The Canaries boss insists that City's current form - 11 games without a win - means his players should not be rubbing shoulders with the fans in the street and that they can only hold their heads high once they have learned how to win games of football.

In a hard-hitting indictment on his playing staff, Roeder says they must aim to send City fans home happy, rather than "bleeding".

"I don't even like walking around the town," he said. "I have been in a few times and you are looking around, you don't really want to be seen.

"That is how I feel about football. It is a winning game. The players have to feel like that if they are walking around the town. I would not be proud at the moment. I would be hurting so terribly I would not want to go out."

Roeder believes any players who are happy to carry on regardless simply don't care, saying: "If you are the other way it means you don't care enough. It means you do not care enough, if you are happy leading a normal social life where we are in the table.

"Footballers are a different breed, I know we are. I can be critical of footballers, but that is how it has got to be. It's not quite life and death - I know that myself after my own problems with the brain tumour. But you have to win - and our supporters must be absolutely bleeding at the moment, haemorrhaging - and we have to stop it."

Roeder said his players had a responsibility to put the smile back on the faces of City fans who have seen their team go from the Premiership to the bottom of the Championship in three years.

"They have been sent home sad too much this year," said Roeder. "There has been too much crying around the place. It is about time we sent them home a bit later than they normally would do because they want to celebrate a win.

"That is the sort of thing that made me happy at Newcastle, the feeling of warmth of sending 52,000 supporters racing into the town - they do that on a Saturday night anyway, but a bit quicker and for a bit longer. Make people happy.

"It must be horrible, absolutely horrible being a Norwich City supporter at the moment."