Paul Lambert felt Norwich gifted Fulham both goals in today's 2-1 Premier League defeat at Craven Cottage.

City were two down inside the opening 15 minutes after Clint Dempsey and Damien Duff capitalised on some lax defending in the visiting ranks. Aaron Wilbraham's first Premier League goal of his career set up a grandstand finish, but City were unable to avoid a third successive away league defeat.

'I was delighted with how we responded to the two goals but you can't give teams a head start in this league,' said Lambert. 'When it goes 2-0 so early away from home you fear the worst but we showed a lot of character to come back strong and I felt in the end we could have got something from the game. Ryan Bennett was brilliant for his first start at this level. He certainly didn't look out of place and I was really pleased for Aaron. He is a top lad away from the pitch and he has not always had a chance but he went on and did what I expected him to do which is make an impact.'

Dempsey was a constant menace in the early thursts for the Cottagers - slamming home barely 109 seconds into the action after John Ruddy could only parry Bryan Ruiz's initial strike before Duff pounced to tuck away Dempsey's throughball.

'I said beforehand they have some top, top players,' said Lambert. 'If you are saying John may have been at fault for the first one, I wouldn't blame him. He made an excellent stop in the second half to keep us in the game.'

Lambert confirmed afterwards left back Marc Tierney trained with the first team squad on Saturday and could feature in next week's final home Premier Reserved League home fixture against Sunderland.