Chris Lakey Glenn Roeder says he is desperate to take some of the weight off the shoulders of striker Dion Dublin. The Canaries manager came close to signing a new front-man on transfer deadline day, but the player - widely assumed to be Grzegorz Rasiak - left Southampton for the greener pastures of the Premiership and a loan spell with Bolton.

Chris Lakey

Glenn Roeder says he is desperate to take some of the weight off the shoulders of striker Dion Dublin.

The Canaries manager came close to signing a new front-man on transfer deadline day, but the player - widely assumed to be Grzegorz Rasiak - left Southampton for the greener pastures of the Premier League and a loan spell with Bolton.

But Roeder has one final trick up his sleeve in the shape of an eighth and final loan player - which he is allowed to bring in after a week's grace following the closing of the January transfer window.

And it looks like a Dublin play-a-like is top of his shopping list.

"Possibly - we have to wait and see how things unfold, but I do think at the moment we are relying much too heavily on Dion Dublin at 38, who has done a magnificent job," said Roeder after Saturday's 1-0 win over Preston.

"I think you can sum up Dion's contribution to the game today in how he finds the energy, motivation, desire to hang on to that win, how he got to the ball at the corner kick they got straight after we scored. That was amazing, and what a great header away it was as well.

"But I don't want to get to a situation where we are relying too heavily on Dion. Obviously he is that alternative big striker - when you can't play your short passing game you have an outlet up to Dion. To ask him to play two games a week is a big ask. He will do it, he wants to do it but it is obviously not easy for him."

Roeder has plenty of cover in the other departments now, with seven loan players at the club, but because they all arrived late in the window, he opted to leave defender Alex Pearce and midfielder Kieran Gibbs out, with Matthew Bates coming off the bench and James Henry getting a late run-out on the right wing.

"What I saw from the four players yesterday (Friday) I am quite excited and I really feel those four players are going to lift the technical level that is in the squad and help us to climb into the top half of the table," said Roeder. "None of the players that are here are for sale. We have taken four players that are not buyable, they are all wanted back at their Premiership clubs at the end of the season - hopefully they are not called back after 28 days. A couple of them potentially that could happen with."

Roeder refused to change his starting line-up after the midweek win at Southampton, but the pressure the new boys will put on the team is evident - Bates was excellent after replacing Jon Otsemobor at right-back 10 minutes into the second half.

"They deserved it - the way they played against Leicester, the result that was achieved against Southampton, they deserved to start again, but those players know they are under an awful lot of pressure now from the four lads that have come in. Just looking at training on Friday morning the four boys are real good players.

"I think he (Bates) looked the player that has come from a Premiership club, he looked classy, he looked very, very mean up in the corner there when he took the ball and the player. I wouldn't think many some wingers will enjoy playing against him while he's here.

"He (Otsemobor) has a sore Achilles, but I wanted to get Batesy into the action as soon as possible - they are here to play."

City were going nowhere until Darel Russell saved the day with a stunning 90th-minute volley to earn the points.

"It was a fantastic strike - only a strike like that was going to beat the goalkeeper," Roeder added.

"You don't want to be relying on your strikers too much, you need to have players in your team other than strikers who can score goals and Russell is capable of doing that.

"If you don't buy a lottery ticket you don't win the lottery - if you don't shoot you don't score."

It wasn't the best performance under Roeder, but three points isn't to be sniffed at.

"We are not a team a squad of excuse makers, we expect to be praised when we play well and we hold our hands up, in the first half we were nowhere near our best, although they didn't cause us too many problems," he said.

"Marshy didn't have too many saves. Thankfully half-time came and we could make them realise the importance of spreading the play and playing using our width and getting crosses in and certainly getting more efforts on goal because I think in the first half we probably had one shot and one header and I can't remember too much more, which isn't acceptable for the home team, or for us anyway.

"Their keeper had to keep them in it with a couple of good saves, then a wonderful strike off his so-called weaker foot has gained the three points, and it was a huge three points when you look at the table."