'Terrible position' admits Russell

David Cuffley Midfielder Darel Russell admitted Norwich City had ended the year in a “terrible position” in the Championship table after losing to managerless Nottingham Forest.

David Cuffley

Midfielder Darel Russell admitted Norwich City had ended the year in a “terrible position” in the Championship table after losing to managerless Nottingham Forest.

A crowd of 25,475, officially the Canaries' biggest of the season, saw them beaten for the fifth time on home territory as fellow strugglers Forest gave acting boss John Pemberton a belated Christmas present with a 3-2 win.

Russell, introduced as a half-time substitute for David Bell with City trailing 2-0, appeared to have thrown them a lifeline with 18 minutes to go when his shot was diverted into the net by defender Ian Breckin.

But ex-Canary striker Robert Earnshaw, a late substitute, struck in the final minute to wrap things up at 3-1 before another own goal by fellow substitute Joe Garner reduced the arrears - meaning Forest contributed all five goals on a day when they avenged their defeat by Glenn Roeder's men at the City Ground last month.

“It's terrible, really. We're on our home patch and we've lost against one of the teams at the bottom of the league,” said Russell.

“Other results went against us today so it's a terrible position to have ourselves in right now.

“It's got to worry us. If you're not worried about it, you're not right in the head.”

Defeat left City just two places and two points above the bottom three with their next league fixture against Sheffield United at Bramall Lane on January 10 - a game Russell looks certain to miss through suspension after picking up his fifth yellow card of the season yesterday.

“We've got to start putting things together and realise that you can't mess around in this league,” he said.

“The bottom line is in times of difficulty we have to show that passion and drive and want to win.

“You can see it out there, for whatever reason it might be - I can't put my finger on it - we haven't been right today.

“When we play people at the top of the league or there's a big game, we definitely put that performance in and do well and when it's the so-called lesser games we have to get our minds and our attitudes the same and produce the same performance. We haven't done it today.

“We've played well over the last few weeks and to come out and do this is extremely disappointing.

“We got ourselves in touching distance of recovering something from the game and then made a silly mistake. We got back in it again, but it was too little, too late.”