JAMIE Cureton was understandably delighted to bag a hat-trick against his old club, but his manager was decidedly underwhelmed by the feat of his star striker.

Carl Marston

JAMIE Cureton was understandably delighted to bag a hat-trick against his old club, but his manager was decidedly underwhelmed by the feat of his star striker.

Norwich City boss Glenn Roeder was happy with his side's thumping victory, which propelled them further away from the relegation zone, but he did not go overboard with his praise for Cureton.

“The fact that he (Cureton) was the Golden Boot winner from last season (for Colchester) means nothing to me,” said Roeder.

“He's paid to score goals, and he's scored them today. But he has also missed plenty lately.

“I don't say bad luck when he misses a number of openings, so I'm not going to say much when he scores some. He's earned his wages for this week, but that's his responsibility for the team, to score goals and set up goals for others.

“He's got another match-ball to take home and put on his shelf, but that means more work for his wife with the dusting,” added Roeder.

Cureton was more than happy to create more housework at home. The 32-year-old had scored a hat-trick for Colchester in the 3-0 win at Southend on Easter Saturday last year, and he repeated the feat with three more goals to blitz his old club.

“There must be something about me scoring hat-tricks on an Easter Saturday.” enthused Cureton.

“I don't want to see Colchester get relegated, because they are my old team and I have a lot of friends at the club. I feel sad for them because they've had a bad year.

“But it was important that we won this game, and it just happened to be Colchester we were playing. I celebrated my goals at the time, but I feel for Colchester,” added Cureton. It was the 10th hat-trick of his career.

Ironically, Cureton's former manager, Geraint Williams, heaped more praise on the player than current manager Roeder.

Williams said: “That's what Jamie Cureton does, scoring goals. He did it for us last season, and it's no surprise that he's done it again. We wanted to stop him, but we let him have too many chances.”