Play-off hopes remain alive, but time is running out...

If we are going to make it into the play-offs this season, it will be thanks to other teams' poor results, rather than our own form. We could quite easily have found ourselves four points adrift by Saturday teatime, but Leeds' failure to beat Watford on their own pitch ensured that the gap is just two points and gives us a fighting chance of climbing back into the top six with four matches left.

It was always going to be a difficult game at high-flying Norwich City, so losing to them is certainly no disgrace. We did play reasonably well for most of the match, but our lack of finesse proved to be our undoing as Norwich recovered from the early setback of conceding a freak Nathan Tyson goal to earn a 2-1 win thanks to goals from former Forest striker Grant Holt, and Andrew Surman. The sending-off of Paul Konchesky in injury time for a double booking was something we could have done without as he will now miss the local derby against Leicester on Friday night.

There was not an awful lot wrong with the way we played, and there was no question that the effort was there, but as the game wore on, I became increasingly convinced that we were just not going to score another goal. Norwich were far from being at their best, but they seemed to be pretty comfortable as Forest ran out of ideas. Victory would have put us back in the top six, if only perhaps for 24 hours, while defeat could potentially be very damaging if results the following day went against us.

The fact that Leeds were held to a 2-2 draw against Watford was a big boost, but it's not just the teams above us that we have to worry about now, as Hull are now level with us on goal difference, with Millwall, Leicester and Burnley all within two or three points of us. I think we're going to have to win at least three of our remaining four games to give us a good chance of qualifying for the play-offs, and even that might not be enough. It's all a far cry from January when people were talking us up as possible Champions, and a play-off place looked little more than a formality.