CONCEDING the second goal just minutes after half-time was the ‘killer blow’ in Saturday’s 4-0 defeat to Manchester United, according to boss Neil Adams.

City competed with their hosts for most of the opening period, but a brace of goals from Wayne Rooney before and after the break proved their undoing.

“When we were still in the game, the disappointing thing was in the second half early on when we didn’t get close enough to Rooney, and he’s capable of doing that,” Adams told Norwich City TV after the game.

“You’ve got a mountain to climb then, that’s the killer blow without a shadow of a doubt. When this place is rocking, it’s always going to be a massive ask.

“We had to quell their threat initially and I thought we did that really well, but we gave away a really soft penalty. I’m not so sure it’s a penalty, there’s minimal contact there.

“We needed to be better. We needed to cause them more problems. You talk about character, that’s absolutely what we need now.”

The Canaries are now just a point and a place above the Premier League relegation spots, Adams insists his squad of players have got that character to get the necessary points for survival from their final two matches against Chelsea and Arsenal.

“We’ve got players who want to compete and want to tackle. I was really pleased with the first two performances and for 40 minutes today, we were really good but the goals changed the game, as they always do,” he added.

“I’ve seen character in there. Obviously we’ll keep it private but I’ve seen people that are hurt. There are two massive, massive games now, and we need to take points from both of them, it’s looking that way.

“We need to make sure we’re at it for these last two games, regardless of whether we’re in the bottom three or out of the bottom three.”

NEIL ADAMS: 'SECOND GOAL THE TURNING POINT'

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