CHRIS LAKEY Youssef Safri could be out for the rest of the season after limping off with a hamstring injury against West Brom.The Moroccan midfielder left the field just before half-time clutching his left leg - and should it turn out to be a tear it could be the last City fans see of him for a while.

CHRIS LAKEY

Youssef Safri could be out for the rest of the season after limping off with a hamstring injury yesterday.

The Moroccan midfielder left the field just before half-time clutching his left leg - and should it turn out to be a tear it could be the last City fans see of him for a while.

"You don't know, hamstrings can be anything," said Norwich boss Peter Grant. "If it is a slight tear that could be season over."

Grant was left to bemoan the risks of playing the 30-year-old twice in the space of four days.

"Playing two games on the bounce is sometimes a problem for him," said Grant. "You look at his body wake-up, sometimes that is a problem for him.

"Yesterday he had a slight groin strain, but he wanted to play in the match. Maybe, in hindsight, I should have freshened it up prior to the match, but I didn't want to make too many changes - because we had that extra day I thought we'd be fresher.

"But West Brom, I went to their game on Saturday and they were the much fresher team on the day and played better than us."

Safri and Adam Drury, who lost a tooth, were the most serious of the knocks in the City dressing room, but there was little sympathy from Grant.

"I hope they are all hurting at that performance," he said.

Drury, already sporting a black eye from Friday's win at Hull, had a front tooth knocked out during the early stages of the second half after an aerial collision with Zoltan Gera - although he quickly retrieved it.

"It's a little bit sore," said Drury. "I went up for the header and I knew straight away he'd caught me in the face. I went down and I looked in my hand and saw my tooth. I started to talk and had a little bit of a whistle, but it's not great."

The physical scars were obvious, but City's up-and-down form has other effects too.

"It gets you down, it really does," admitted Drury. "You go from the highs to the lows in the space of a few days and it is so frustrating.

"In this division it is all about your home form; when you get home wins and pick up points away, that's the difference and we have to make Carrow Road what it was before, like a fortress."