AFTER a controversial result from Saturday's clash with Sheffield Wednesday saw City drop one place in the Championship table, David Marshall says he was bitterly disappointed with the way events turned out, marring his 100th appearance for the Club.
After a below-par first-half performance from the home side, it was the visitors who took the points courtesy of Jermaine Johnson's 48th minute deflected goal. More drama came when a David Mooney header was ruled out in the 84th minute by referee Mick Russell. Although the official initially appeared to have given the goal, the assistant's flag intervened and a free-kick to the Owls' awarded.
"It's disappointing, especially at this stage of the season we're looking for honesty and fair decisions," Marshall told canaries.co.uk. "So we're disappointed with that but it's done now, we have to stick together now and hopefully our luck will turn next week."
Marshall was asked about the protection given to 'keepers in goal mouth challenges, especially with City's last two matches now having involved such controversial incidents - Cameron Jerome's opener for Birmingham being allowed under strong City protests for a foul on David Marshall and now Mooney's disallowed effort against Wednesday for a foul on their stopper Lee Grant. He commented: "99 times out of 100, you get the decision - we didn't get it against Birmingham and it's just the way it goes the next weekend we get one disallowed. We're not going to blame the ref, we need to pick ourselves up and go again."
"It was a disappointing result, we felt as if we could have won the game before. It was a must-win game for us, and it's frustrating to lose it and we feel quite hard-done by. We need to just get on with it, we've got five games to go and there's enough points to pick up there to stay up."
On whether the break from Championship football due to the international break had effected the Canaries league momentum, the Scotsman said: "It can go both ways. The boys have had a rest and I think we just didn't play well in the first half and we didn't recover from that.
"The other team have had a break as well, so we just need to pick ourselves up for the games next week. We're still outside the bottom three and we've got five games to go to stay outside it."
With three out of the Canaries' five remaining games of the season away from Carrow Road, the 24-year-old told First News there was only one option left for City: "It obviously helps being at Carrow Road because the fans are brilliant, but we hope we can go and win away, especially the derby game.
"There's some massive games coming up and with the five games left to go, we just have to win."
