Norwich City midfielder Jonny Howson is urging the Canaries to stay in the moment and focus solely on Wigan ahead of this weekend's Premier League trip to the DW Stadium.

Chris Hughton's men have a seven-point cushion over the relegation-threatened Latics but Howson is happy to leave the number-crunching to the mathematicians.

'It was always going to go down to the wire,' he said. 'Most of the time it goes down to the last few games but as players and staff, we're just taking each game as it comes.

'If you start to look too far ahead and think we've got this many points, you can get carried away. Just take each game as it comes – all you can affect is the next game and that's what we've been doing.

'It's a big game because Wigan is down there as well but it's not going to be decided on Saturday. We'll keep working hard and put everything into it, like we have all season and hopefully we'll be okay.'

City have taken points off every club below them in the current standings this season, but that statistic provided cold comfort to Howson.

'I don't like to look at records like that,' he said. 'Records can always be broken and new ones can be set so I think if you just prepare like you would for any other game, no one can ask any different of you. Once you go over that white line and the whistle's blown, it's a game of football like any other. You try to do the right things for your position and help your team-mates out the best you can, give everything and if it's enough then great and if it's not you can hold your hands up, if you give everything and it doesn't work out.

'It's the same as every other game. It's always a challenge. You prepare in the week, look at how they like to set up with different formations, strengths and weaknesses. It's going to be no different because every game in the Premier League is a difficult game and Saturday will be no different.'

Howson conceded the international break may have come at the wrong time on a personal level after playing a key role in the battling draw at Sunderland when City played with 10 men for an hour.

'It depends on the individual,' he said. 'Personally, I would have been happy to carry on but for the majority of the lads who have played most of the games week in, week out, maybe a break now and then is nice just to have an extra weekend or a few days to get away from football. Sometimes you need a rest like that, just different scenery. It's part of it, you can't change it and you're always going to have international fixtures, so it's something you have to deal with.

'Every club we play against has the same scenario so it's no different. The ones who didn't go away were training the majority of last week. We had the weekend off just to get away from it and refresh.'