Chris Hughton feels now is the time for cool heads to steer Norwich City out of a prolonged New Year blip.

City host Tottenham in the Premier League on the back of picking up one point from their last 18 available and fresh from a shock FA Cup defeat to Luton. Hughton admits the Canaries are in a trough at present, but the underlying trend is a positive one as they look to secure a second season in the top flight.

'We are all emotional people and you want to do the best you can but we have to deal with it,' he said. 'If you are a Manchester United, Chelsea or Arsenal you are used to being in that top four or five every week and picking up results. Most of us don't. If I look at our league position right now then performances at the very start weren't so bad, without getting the results. You might look at that as a dip. We then had a good run and now a poor one. Most wouldn't have expected us to get a result against teams like Arsenal or United. That tells us if we are playing well enough, if we are on the ball and creating chances, then we are able to hold our own with anyone. We are capable of winning football matches. Even Manchester City, when we were 2-0 down early on, we managed to make it a close game.'

Hughton has had to field questions over Norwich's relative lack of goals for the majority of the season, but the City chief insists even in cup defeat at the weekend they continue to create chances.

'We are not hiding from anything. There is a concern, of course there is at this moment,' he said. 'We are not scoring the goals we would like and certainly at Liverpool we conceded five goals. It is for us to address those areas. Scoring goals was probably a concern before Swansea and we ended up scoring four and that probably came out of the blue a bit. All you can do is work as hard as you can to create chances.'

Hughton knows a positive result against Tottenham tonight will help the healing process after a painful loss to the Hatters.

'If the favoured team on the day plays well and takes their chances then they will ultimately win most of those ties,' he said. 'If you under perform it just needs the less fancied team to raise their game.'