CITY'S deadly strikeforce of Grant Holt, Chris Martin and Wes Hoolahan took their combined goal tally for the season to 60 as they each scored to earn City a comfortable win over visitors Yeovil.

Hoolahan slotted home his 14th of the season less than two minutes into the game, Holt smashed in his 26th of the campaign after the break and Martin grabbed his 20th strike as City stretched their lead at the top of league one to seven points, with Leeds held at home by Brentford.

The game was only 104 seconds old when City swept into the lead. Holt was unlucky not to add to his tally as his header from Anthony McNamee's corner smacked against the upright - but the rebound spun across goal kindly for Hoolahan to side-foot home.

Holt had a glorious chance to double City's advantage in first-half injury time when he played a lovely one-two with Chris Martin before rounding the 'keeper superbly, only to fire into the side-netting.

In the second half Simon Lappin brought a fine flying save from Glovers 'keeper McCarthy, diving to his left to palm over the Canary midfielder's 25-yard drive in the 65th minute.

But McCarthy was arguably partially at fault four minutes later as Norwich struck a killer blow with their second of the game. McNamee's cross ballooned high in the air off a Yeovil defender and McCarthy under pressure from Martin made a hash of his attempt to punch clear - and the ball fell for Holt to smash into the roof of the net.

Then on 75 minutes the Yeovil stopper was picking the ball out of his net again. This time a clever pass from Holt took out two visiting defenders to find Chris Martin sprinting in to blast a low shot McCarthy got a hand to but could not keep out.

With just under a quarter of an hour to go Lambert made a double subsitution as Oli Johnson replaced Holt and Stephen Elliot came on for his City debut in place of Martin. Matt Gill later completed the changes as Hoolahan left the pitch to a huge ovation.

Afterwards City boss Paul Lambert commented: "I thought we started the game really well and throughout the 90 minutes we were a threat. The lads have given me everything. They were on top of their game and I've always got great belief they will go and get us a goal when they are playing well like that.

"Every game we try to take the game to the opposition right from the off. Sometimes it works, sometimes it takes you a bit longer to get into it, but today I thought they were excellent. The lads have been brilliant and they are the ones who deserve all the credit."

Although City's victory was a comfortable one, with Fraser Forster barely called upon to make a save, Lambert commented: "At 1-0 you're taking nothing for granted at all. Terry's got a good side there who have got some good results so we always knew we'd have to stay on top of our game.

"Every game we play is hard. People come to the stadium expecting us to win six or seven-nil and it just doesn't happen that way. We've got to earn the right to play against these teams and it will be the same in the games still to go."