David Cuffley Glenn Roeder was full of praise for his Norwich City side despite last night's defeat at Watford, insisting: “It was daylight robbery.”It was, perhaps, floodlit robbery as the Hornets leapfrogged the Canaries in the Championship table courtesy of a 2-1 win at Vicarage Road, despite the visitors having at least 60 per cent of possession.

David Cuffley

Glenn Roeder was full of praise for his Norwich City side despite last night's defeat at Watford, insisting: “It was daylight robbery.”

It was, perhaps, floodlit robbery as the Hornets leapfrogged the Canaries in the Championship table courtesy of a 2-1 win at Vicarage Road, despite the visitors having at least 60 per cent of possession.

“We totally dominated from start to finish and gave them two early Christmas presents,” said the City boss of the goals scored by Watford's Tamas Priskin and Tommy Smith.

“They haven't beaten us, we have beaten ourselves and it's so frustrating because there were some excellent performances out there again, some really terrific performances from our lads.

“There is nothing to criticise them about. The amount of possession, the amount of crosses we got into the box, the opportunities that we had - and then we gift them two goals.

“At times we have been poor away from home, at times we have had periods in games away from home where we have totally dominated, but not like that, not for 90 minutes. That was one-way traffic.

“Anyone who can put up a case that Watford deserved to win, I'm sorry, you don't know what you're watching, you're in fairy land.”

City were without new signing Carl Cort, still awaiting international clearance before he can make his debut, and flu' victim Wes Hoolahan, but looked a reasonable bet for victory when Lee Croft equalised on the hour to cancel out Priskin's first-half goal, only for Smith to strike just three minutes later.

“Once Crofty equalised with a header - and I've waited a long time to see him score with his head - I thought if there was to be another goal, only one team was going to score then and that was ourselves,” said Roeder. “To have not held on to that 1-1 scoreline for very long was very poor. It was an absolute nonsense to give a goal away so quickly and so poorly once we got back in the game.”

Roeder said new Watford boss Brendan Rodgers was “a very lucky man” to have chalked up his first victory but added: “It really is down to what we did to ourselves again.”

The City squad will stay away from Norwich and train at Bisham Abbey tomorrow before the trip to Reading on Saturday.

“The team spirit is excellent in the place, but you look at the league table and you can't believe where we are,” said Roeder. “But we are where we are. No one feels sorry for themselves. They are men, they are not boys. We have to pick ourselves up and move on. If we carry on playing like that and we cut out giving away such soft, soft goals then we'll be fine.”