David Cuffley City boss Glenn Roeder is keen to delve into the loan market again to try to solve his side's goalscoring problems.The Canaries drew a blank once again as they went down 1-0 to Stoke at Carrow Road - and have not scored more than once in their last 10 home matches in all competitions.

David Cuffley

City boss Glenn Roeder is keen to delve into the loan market again to try to solve his side's goalscoring problems.

The Canaries drew a blank once again as they went down 1-0 to Stoke at Carrow Road - and have not scored more than once in their last 10 home matches in all competitions.

Jamie Cureton and substitute Ched Evans missed clear opportunities in the second half to have secured victory, let alone a point.

Said Roeder: “The team the whole year has been one of the lowest scoring teams in the Championship and we've now hit a flat spot where we've had a few disappointing results and performances.

“The level of performance was very good tonight, but the lack of hitting the back of the net when chances were made has come back to haunt us. We have to find a way and if I can find a striker to take on loan I will take one. I will take two if I can find them, but I have been looking now for the past couple of weeks and they are few and far between.

“At this time of the year, for many reasons, managers don't want to let their players go, but a couple of players here, new players, would freshen it up.”

Leading scorer Cureton's stoppage time miss summed up the night, said Roeder.

“We have shown a lack of a killer instinct to get the ball in the back of the net and made poor decisions on which foot to use to make sure that we do hit the back of the net, and I think the last chance that we missed from a yard just about summed up all the other chances we missed,” he said.

“What can he say? He knows in the past he has proved at the right level he scores goals. He's had two brilliant chances in the second half, but you would expect him to take at least one of those, if not both.”

Evans header from Lee Croft's cross, straight at goalkeeper Carlo Nash, was another chance that went begging.

“I was waiting for the ball to hit the back of the net,” said Roeder. “To be quite honest, if I wanted any chance to fall to any player that we've got in the squad, I'd probably be quite happy for the chance to fall to Ched because he will in his career prove to be a proven goalscorer, so I was quite surprised he didn't generate that much power on the header.

“We've shot ourselves in the foot tonight because the performance deserved three points. It's frustrating, to say the least, to take nothing , but we've got to be very strong-minded and pick ourselves up quickly and go to the next game up in Sheffield on Saturday.

“Having said that, the positive is that it is the best we have played, easily, in the last five or six weeks in terms of performance. I thought we were by far the better team.”

The predictable nature of Stoke's goal annoyed Roeder.

“It was rough justice, but it was of our own making. No excuses from me,” he said.

“We worked hard for two days on what we knew Stoke are good at, and that is their set plays, particularly the long throw-in. The boys worked hard and generally speaking tonight they dealt with them very well, but the vital one they didn't deal with.

“There were two or three small errors from the three players that were involved, including the goalkeeper, and it ends up being flicked over Marshy into an empty net.

“It is a ridiculously poor goal. That was poor defending.

“On the balance of play and chances created we should have been allowed to concede one goal and gone on and won the game comfortably.”