CHRIS LAKEY Canaries boss Peter Grant is aiming to win the eight-game “mini-league” between now and the end of the season. With City virtually clear of relegation trouble and the play-offs a forgotten ambition, Grant is hoping to finish a troubled campaign off in style - which is why he was still busy trying to get loan players in before last Thursday's deadline passed.

CHRIS LAKEY

Canaries boss Peter Grant is aiming to win the eight-game “mini-league” between now and the end of the season.

With City virtually clear of relegation trouble and the play-offs a forgotten ambition, Grant is hoping to finish a troubled campaign off in style - which is why he was still busy trying to get loan players in before last Thursday's deadline passed.

“I had been close to getting one in but I had actually been asking about two or three because I still felt we had done okay, but that's all we had done,” said Grant, who has produced a run of four wins in six games to lift the Canaries clear of trouble.

“We have been more consistent probably since the Wolves game, apart from two games - the first half against Cardiff and the Coventry game, the big middle period of that. The last few games we have bounced back and played very, very well, but I thought the other games when we lost we had played very well, so the consistency has been there, been much more evident.

“But we are well short of where I want to be. We have an eight-game season left and that's what I am pushing towards - I want to win it and leave us at the top for when we start back again.

“I still feel we are short even though we have done okay. People talk about transfers windows but there is never a window because you are always looking to bring good players in at all times, you are constantly looking.”

While Grant was frustrated that the welcoming mat was unused, he was able to let two players leave City on temporary deals. Goalkeeper Joe Lewis will spend the rest of the season at League Two Stockport, where he was an unused sub in the stunning 7-2 home defeat by Rochdale on Saturday, while Paul McVeigh has a similar agreement with fellow Championship side Burnley.

Grant said: “I thought about it long and hard and come the summer Paul's contract runs out, so I think it was important to get him in the shop window for himself.”