Iwan Roberts on international break, December and a 30-game season

For the last two, City went in on the back of a defeat and a draw, which at times maybe isn’t such a bad thing. But they went into this international break after winning the game at Cardiff from which they have maybe got that little bit of a feelgood factor about the place… and they’ve had to wait a couple of weeks before another game.

You don't want the break, you want to play as soon as you can. You've had a good away win in a tough place to go and normally the nature of the Championship is relentless, you play two or three games a week, Saturday, Tuesday, Saturday, Wednesday, Sunday, Tuesday … but after a first win in forever you get a decent performance but more importantly, a decent result.

It is not ideal, but what it does do is it gives the manager and the players a chance to recharge - you look at December, it’s the busiest month in the football calendar, they’ve got seven games.

I think for a lot of teams December can make or break you. At the minute, whatever Norwich fans believe and hope their expectations are, they've still got a chance of finishing in the top six.

I think the top four run away with it, they're in a different league to anybody else. It's how they finish in that top four, we'll have to wait and see. But anybody else, I think there are two play-off places up for grabs, even at this early stage.

City’s season is down to 30 games. Forget what's happened up until now. We can't affect that, it’s gone.

It's not been great - there's been some good elements to it, but obviously there's been more poor elements than positive ones, but you have just got to put that to one side and focus, especially on December. It can make or break any team’s season - seven games is a lot of games so he's going to have to juggle the pack, I'm sure.

Grant Hanley's return will be a big plus for City (Image: Paul Chesterton/Focus Images Ltd)

Having players coming back from injury will give everybody a boost. You're getting your club captain, Grant Hanley, back soon, your main leader back on the pitch, which is a massive boost for everybody.

And you're getting a centre forward – Ashley Barnes - who was doing okay, and you will get his influence on and off the pitch.

That’s two old heads with plenty of experience. People have that love-hate thing about Grant but as I have said before, you only realise what he gives a team when he's not there. I think it's a massive hole to fill when he's not available.

Slowly getting bodies back can only be a positive thing for David Wagner.

Norwich have 20 points from their 16 games. I looked at Burnley last year – they only lost three games last season. But this time last season, after 16 games, they only had 29 points. You look at Ipswich and Leicester – they have got 10 more points already. So look at the run Burnley put together last season to get 101 points. Teams can do it.

Wagner’s only won back-to-back league games three times with City. His first two games; then they had a run of three wins on the spin against Birmingham, Cardiff and Millwall again, in February last year, and then this season when they beat Millwall and Huddersfield.

It's something that he hasn't done enough of as a manager, for some reason and he's got to look at himself and think, why haven't I won enough back-to-back games? Because that makes a massive difference. You win two or three on the spin and it makes a world difference for your whole football club, but he hasn't done it enough.