Norwich weren't wholly dreadful; they didn't plumb some Peter Grant-esque depths. They were just wholly ineffective.

We could have all been sat there until Christmas and you wonder how many times Ranges keeper Radek Cerny would have had to bestir himself, such was the visitors dominance in their final third of the pitch.

They were an immovable object sat on the edge of their penalty area and Norwich had neither the brain nor the brawn to shift them. Which is a worry.

Or rather would be if every team were of Rangers well-drilled ilk. Fortunately, for every Rangers there appears to be a Plymouth.

That said, you suspect that tomorrow's visitors Sheffield United are more from the Loftus Road end of the market than the Home Park – a game in which you do not want to be bedding in a new centre-half partner for Dejan Stefanovic.

But if there were a sight for particularly frustrated eyes at Carrow Road this week, it was seeing John Kennedy hobble off the pitch with that second-half ankle injury

Without the benefit of a scan, City boss Glenn Roeder was already fearing the worst straight afterwards.

The 25-year-old has – by some way – been the pick of the summer arrivals and upon his rock-like efforts, solid mid-tables finishes are based.

To prise a place in the play-offs, you have to make goal-scoring look rather easier than Norwich do at present; right now, City make it look akin to scaling the North Face of the Eiger dressed only in a pair of Bermuda shorts and flip-flops.

Everyone will have their own theories. And you strongly suspect that there is more than one reason why, against the better class of opposition, City are struggling to make much of a dent.

But if Championship football is all about power - and QPR were powerful almost to a man - it is also about pace. And the Canaries still don't have it in enough measure to hurt people.

Sibierski, Russell, Cureton, Hoolahan and Pattison all have many qualities, but the first word next to their name is never pace. And that's the issue. Pace and power.

Against sides in the kind of help yourself mood that the Pilgrims were in on Saturday, Norwich will be fine. But against anyone who needs to be moved around for City to ever catch sight of the opposition goal, they will struggle.

Pace. You've got to have pace.

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