Lambert praises Holt show

Norwich City manager Paul Lambert has spoken of the importance of Grant Holt to his team, after beating Newcastle United 4-2 on Saturday.

Striker Holt bagged an important double, while Wes Hoolahan and Steve Morison also scored in the victory over 10-man Newcastle in the English Premier League encounter.

With the score locked at 1-1 at half-time, Holt put Norwich ahead in the second half before giving them breathing space with the final goal eight minutes from time.

“He’s every bit as important as he was two years ago, when I joined,” Lambert said of Holt.

“He’s done that here for two-and-a-half years, he’s been a handful wherever he is, and I thought both he and Steve Morison were excellent today.”

“I’m delighted with his performance.”

Lambert felt his side fully deserved the victory, which lifted Norwich into ninth on the Premier League table.

“I thought we deserved to win the game,” he said.

“Newcastle are a good side, you can see they’ve been doing very well in the league. They’ve got a threat up front (Demba Ba) and threats in support, but I thought we played very well.”

Newcastle manager Alan Pardew said that injuries to central defenders Steven Taylor and Fabricio Coloccini was testing his side’s depth at the back.

Danny Simpson and James Perch deputised in central defence but they were undone time and again from set-pieces as Norwich romped to victory.

“It’s fairly obvious we missed them (Taylor and Coloccini). Our squad has been stretched to the limit,” Pardew said.

“You can’t concede from three set-plays but any team would struggle with the injuries we’ve got in central defence.”

“We created chances all day and we looked like we were going to score. We accepted that we weren’t going to keep a clean sheet and that we had to score goals.”

The loss meant Newcastle dropped to seventh, having taken just one point from their last four matches.

“We don’t need any more blows, particularly injury-wise,” Pardew said.

“We have to keep our spirit about us and we showed that today. We want to stay in the top seven or eight if we can.”