Iwan Roberts on Norwich against Plymouth and Leicester

When they were beaten 6-2 at Plymouth back in September it was the lowest point of their season. Now, when Plymouth head to Carrow Road, City are at their highest point.

That was rock bottom, to travel all the way down there, the furthest journey that the fans make, a seven-hour journey to watch that dross. It was an embarrassing afternoon, simple as that, and the lads will know they not just let the fans down, they let themselves down.

David Wagner has turned things around (Image: Paul Chesterton/Focus Images Ltd)

David Wagner was, at that time, the number one villain - now he's turned things around and I'm delighted for him.

This is, though, a game they have got to win. Plymouth at home, a team who have one of the worst away records in the league. And when, like Norwich, you’ve won 29 points from 11 home games and having been to Stoke away and won three points there, I wouldn't say this should be a gimme, but the lads will know they have to get three points – because of what is coming up on Monday – a trip to Leicester City.

Revenge will come into it for City today. What happened will sit in the back of your mind, when you've lost that heavily to a team that's just been promoted from League One. As a player, if something happens against one of the opposition defenders, I used to say right whenever it might be, it might not be this season, but there will come a time when I will get a chance to get a little bit of revenge, a little bit of pay back, and I will.

Obviously City are riding the crest of a wave at the minute, but they have got to approach the game like they did against Rotherham. People expected them to win, but they were fully focused, fully prepared. It didn't matter if they won 1-0, but when they went out and scored five, happy days. It's got to be more of the same against Plymouth. It's that simple. When you get into this stage now, and Easter is probably the second most important part of a season after Christmas. Christmas you can't compare because games come thick and fast. The difference is you have a bad Christmas, you've still got maybe half the season to recover. You have a bad Easter, if you lose both games and teams below you win, all of a sudden you've got six games to recover. You haven't got the time or the games that you have at Christmas to get back on track.

Leicester have got Bristol City today and Norwich - both games are 12.30pm kick-offs. I don’t think they have been great when they've kicked off early doors – and they’ve lost their last two home games as well.

And for Norwich it’s been three clean sheets in the last four games – they’d kept three in their previous 17. So all of a sudden things are starting. When you've got Josh Sargent in your team you are going to score goals. You just have to somehow tighten things up at the back, and all of a sudden that looks like it's happening now at the most important time of the season.

And is now the best time to be playing Leicester?

I think it could well be. I hate talking badly about them, but I think they're feeling the pressure a little bit, because people thought it was done and dusted. They were winning the league, they were winning promotion - all of a sudden Leeds and Ipswich have chipped away at that lead. I saw a statistic the other day, at the end of December, Leicester were nearly 20 points in front of Leeds. Now they trail them on goal difference.

Are Leicester feeling the pressure? (Image: PA Images)

That can only add massive pressure on the Leicester players’ shoulders. And the other two teams are absolutely relentless.

Leicester could end up in the play-offs, and that would be a massive disaster. The one thing I will say is that after the first international break, Leicester came back and won 10 on the spin. After the second, they won three on the spin and I think after the last one, they won 26 points from 10 games.

They've gone into the international breaks after a defeat at home to Hull, back-to-back defeats against Middlesbrough and Leeds earlier in the season - they've always responded.

But there's more pressure on them now, and pressure does funny things.

I was asked the question, how will Norwich come and play it? Will they come and attack? And I'm thinking, I don't think they will. Because if they could get four points from the Easter period, I think that'd be a great tally.

It's got to be three points against Plymouth, one against Leicester, not the other way around. You'd still take it, but you've missed a trick if you don't beat Plymouth at home.

Loan benefits

Todd Cantwell (Image: Fortuna Sittard/Ivo Delahaye)

It’s good to see Norwich City youngsters doing well at their various loan clubs.

It's a good thing for all concerned – both clubs and the players themselves.

You can't beat getting first team experience, being involved in the build-up to games, being in that dressing room, seeing what it's all about. Because if you're not going to get the chance here at the minute, you're going to get invaluable experience elsewhere.

Todd Cantwell is a case in point – he went to Fortuna Sittard and really enjoyed his time there. They thought the world of him. I think they won promotion as well.

I just think it's so important because nowadays it's not like the olden days when I can't remember too many players going out on loan, when I was at Leicester, when I was at Wolves, when I was at Norwich. It just didn't really happen because they didn't need to - you had a really good strong reserve league.

I remember playing against the likes of Tony Adams and Martin Keown. I remember playing Chelsea away and they had Mickey Droy at the back, Micky Hazard, players like that.

They were players who might have been coming back from injury, they might have fallen out of favour, but they were still playing in the reserves. And they always used to play at the club’s main ground as well. It’s not as if you played at the training ground. Honestly, it was magnificent.

It was so good and there wasn't as much of a call to go out on loan because you were playing at a good standard.

But I think it's a great thing for these young lads now. At the beginning of their careers instead of playing in the under 18 or 21 and 23s, whatever the age groups they are, they can go out and play. If I was their agent, I would be saying ‘get yourself out and get as much experience and as much game time in the first team as you can’. It will help develop the players both mentally and physically, especially these players, young players who go to League Two.

Look at Ben White, now playing for Arsenal, who paid £50m to Brighton for him. I remember him going on loan from Brighton to Newport in 2017-18. He didn't look anything special, but I think the experience of playing week in, week out in League Two helped mature him to become what he's become now.

That’s why teams like Norwich don’t mind sending these youngsters, who may be quite far away from getting anywhere near the first team here, to get that experience somewhere else.

When you come back, maybe start of next season, City will have a look in pre-season and the player will be closer than they probably realise.