CITY'S David Bell has told canaries.co.uk he's ready to return to match action now the international break is over and is looking forward to Norwich's next game away to Bristol this weekend.

With the two-week break coming straight after he made his Canary debut, Bell said although frustrated, he was looking to the season ahead: "It was very frustrating, I got my foot back in the door back from injury, I got a taste of it out on the pitch and I wanted to get some more time. But the international break is part of the game and it's nearly out of the way now, so I've just got to look forward to hopefully playing on Saturday.

"I felt disappointed at the defeat but personally I felt I did OK considering I hadn't played a competitive match for four or five months. Hopefully I can put the injury behind me and concentrate on getting match-fit and playing as many games as I can for the rest of the season. You can train Monday to Friday all season but you're never going to be match-fit unless you play games."

Bell continued: "When you've only played half-an-hour of a proper game in the last few months it will take maybe four or five games to get match-fit, but there's only one way of getting there and that's by playing games. It's my job as a wide player or as a midfielder to create chances for the strikers, and it's not only down to strikers to score goals, goals can come from everywhere. Even the defenders, if they can chip in with a few and if we can too then it's a lot easier and it takes pressure off the strikers to score goals."

With a squad consisting of several players able to play in more than one position, the City midfielder told First News competition for places was a good thing for the team. He said: "I think Crofty's been in good form this season and it's down to me to get my place back in the team and keep that.

"When you get competition for places it puts a bit more pressure on the players so they know they have to perform to stay in the team, because sometimes when you don't have competition you can take your foot off the gas because you know you'll be playing next week no matter what. Competition for places definitely raises the bar for personal performances."

Asked about Norwich's current position in the Championship table, Bell answered: "There's nothing to panic about at the moment, we know we should be in the top half of the table and I'm sure in the next five or six weeks we will be. When you lose a game the worst thing you can do is dwell on it, so we've been talking about Bristol City and what they're going to do to us.

"We're just aiming for that game, and hopefully in the next few weeks we'll be in a more realistic position than what we're in at the moment and these are the times when you need to use your whole squad, you can't just rely on 11 players to play every single game. You pick up knocks and injuries and I'm sure the lads who are waiting to come in are raring to go."