Norwich City boss Peter Grant has promised to respect all the teams involved in this season's crucial play-off chase when the Canaries face Southampton on Saturday afternoon.

Norwich City boss Peter Grant has promised to respect all the teams involved in this season's crucial play-off chase when the Canaries face Southampton on Saturday afternoon.

Victory for City is academic as far as the Championship table is concerned, but Southampton's hopes of promotion are still very much alive.

And that means there will be no let-up from a City side still wracked by injuries for their final home game of the season.

“It is a massive game, not just for us, but in respect of everybody else in the league,” said Grant, who may again be forced to name Academy youngsters on his bench.

“Southampton are obviously trying to get in the play-offs and it would be a total injustice for us if we went out there and never boiled our shirts.

“We are representing this club all the time, it's 24-7 here, and we are going out there to make this club proud.

“We are not bothering where Southampton are. We know they have a big challenge on, to get to the Premier League, and they still have the opportunity to do that through the play-offs. But we are always fighting for our lives every time we play.

“We have got to make sure that we go about our business properly in respect of ourselves, in respect of our own support and obviously in respect to the rest of the league. We owe a performance to ourselves, we have always got to play well.

“If we go about it as an end of season game we could get our backsides kicked.”

Grant still has to mix and match, with the likes of Youssef Safri, Gary Doherty and Luke Chadwick on the sidelines, and likely to be joined by Lee Croft.

Southampton may have blown hot and cold this season but they are just one place and one point out of the magical top six. That could change if they win at Carrow Road and Wolves, West Brom and Preston drop points at home to QPR, at Coventry and at Plymouth respectively.

Grant is well aware of the dangers.

“I watched Southampton against Leeds game on DVD, and they were excellent, they could have won much more convincingly,” he said. “They went to Wolves and scored six, they could have scored six on Saturday, so we know we have to be at our very best.

“We know what it is like down there, we went 1-0 up down there and still lost the game. We will have to play exceptionally well.”