Grant's treasure hunt

CHRIS LAKEY

Canaries boss Peter Grant says he is looking for rough diamonds to transform a side he believes contains too much fool's gold.

Grant was furious as City once again displayed the inconsistency that has been their Achilles Heel all season in the 2-1 home defeat by West Bromwich Albion.

The gulf in class was evident, but it was the manner of defeat which upset Grant, who has a clear picture of the type of player he wants to add to his squad.

“It's the quality of the person, the leaders that you need,” said Grant. “That's the one thing I miss when I don't play Dion Dublin - it is difficult for him to play two games on the bounce but I need somebody who is going to go out there and cajole and rock people when it isn't going well for us, and we don't have that.

“We made it so difficult for ourselves, with so many wrong choices, and I need someone who is going to be out there screaming at somebody - maybe not the greatest player in the world, he will be able to organise his team-mates and make sure we are more consistent.

“We need players here to take us to the next level, we need better quality here, we need winners here, we need people with guts, determination, leadership, you need all that if you are going to be successful.

“West Brom had that little bit of experience, they have been over the course before, you have got Premier League boys in there, we didn't have that.

“If we want to be at the next level we have got to match that. It doesn't mean necessarily with quality on the ball at times - we need a lot of players, it tells you that where we are in the league and we need that quality to take us to that level.”

Players don't come cheaply, and City's cause in the transfer market won't be helped by the loss of parachute payments for next season. But Grant insists it is not all about spending big.

“It doesn't necessarily need money,” he said. “You can find players, that's why you go out and look and search and find the best players available.

“I'd love to have the money to do that. A lot of clubs don't have the money but they can be consistent and be successful.

“In the Championship now the top clubs are spending millions of pounds. If people come out of the Premier League they have the millions of pounds for coming out of there, but at the end of the day if you show character, guts and determination and have that little bit of quality, that can win you a lot of games, especially in the Championship.

“There are a lot of things you can win games with. Finances makes it a little bit easier, but you can't moan about that and hopefully you can find some diamonds out there who are going to give you that something different.”

It was the gulf in class which showed yesterday as City threw away a second-half lead, courtesy of Dickson Etuhu's second goal of the holiday weekend. Sam Sodje equalised within quarter-of-an-hour and Diomansy Kamara earned West Brom a deserved three points in time added on.

It would have been different had referee Jon Moss then awarded a penalty when Sodje collided with Dublin, who also saw a header brilliantly saved by Dean Kiely.

Moss also disregarded a body check on Darren Huckerby when he was clean through, leaving Grant to compare his team's lack of consistency with that of match officials.

“For sure, the ref was as bad as us,” he said. “To be fair if we had ended up with a draw it would have been a disservice to West Bromwich Albion, so I am not moaning about that. But it is a penalty kick and it is a free kick, so that's all you're asking for. I moan at referees and I moan at fourth officials for one reason, because I am just asking for consistency because we don't know what the rules are.

“West Brom deserved to win the game, no complaints. The performance didn't deserve anything from the game. It would have been a total injustice if they hadn't got three points.”