MANAGER Peter Grant bemoaned Norwich City's lack of a killer touch after City failed to build on their domination after going a goal up.Grant had been forced to send out a patched-up side, with a surprise first start for Robert Earnshaw in three months, but was left to wonder just what might have been had City taken the chances that came their way - and not switched off for the second half.

By Derek Davis

MANAGER Peter Grant bemoaned Norwich City's lack of a killer touch after City failed to build on their domination after going a goal up.

Grant had been forced to send out a patched-up side, with a surprise first start for Robert Earnshaw in three months, but was left to wonder just what might have been had City taken the chances that came their way - and not switched off for the second half.

Grant said: “We are disappointed to drop two points because the position we were in we should never have allowed Ipswich back into the game.

“I think we should have been out of sight in the first half.

“But when you are against good players and good teams they are always in the game and there's no doubt Jim (Magilton) would have gone in at half-time delighted to be only 1-0 down and get his troops back together.

“I think that was proved in the second half. Maybe I made some wrong choices in the fact that I played guys that maybe weren't fit enough to play and we never had that zip and that sharpness about us in the second half to kill the game off.

“So very disappointed - and more disappointed because when we go in front we don't have that killer instinct to kill teams off.

“I am learning one thing, that we don't have the mentality to win games of football when we go in front. We have got to have that mentality. If you are playing exceptionally well it is easy, but when you are not playing as well as you would like, can you grind out results? We don't seem to have that devilment yet.”

Grant's build-up had been hampered by injuries to a whole host of players, although Darren Huckerby, Lee Croft, Dion Dublin and Jason Shackell - all added to the list after Tuesday's defeat at Burnley - were all named in the starting line-up.

“That was the biggest problem - who has trained,” he said. “Some of them trained yesterday - the guys from Tuesday have not done anything so it was very, very difficult to put a team sheet together in any shape of form.

“We had to leave it until this morning and we got the call that the boys felt fit enough.”

Magilton - whose team are one point and one place ahead in 14th place in the table - said: “Overall it was a good fightback for the team but, on the overall balance of play, I don't think we deserved to win it and I thought 1-1 was about right.”