TURNER LOOKS TO NORWICH TIE

City defender calls for big February

On the eve of an important clash with Norwich City at Cardiff City Stadium, Bluebirds defender Ben Turner sat down to talk to the press ahead of what he feels will be a huge month in the Club’s Barclays Premier League season.

Speaking at Cardiff City Stadium, Turner said: “When we first looked at the fixtures we knew that February was going to be quite a big month. We knew that January was probably going to be the toughest month that we had, so we’re definitely looking forward to getting into February and leaving January behind.

“I don’t think it’s an absolute must-win. But, there definitely need to be some wins in February. We’ll be going all out for it as we have done in the other games, but we do need to start picking up points, and tomorrow stands out as an obvious game that we certainly don’t want to be losing.”

On paper, the month of February looks a less daunting task for the Bluebirds than January, where they had to travel to three of the Premier League’s heaviest-hitters in Arsenal, Manchester City and Manchester United.

Despite encouraging performances and plenty of pride against some of the toughest opposition the league has to offer, Turner conceded that it is points the Bluebirds now need, starting against Norwich City at Cardiff City Stadium on Saturday.

“We need to go out tomorrow and get the three points,” said Turner. “We need to try and lift the supporters here, this is a fresh month and it’s a good time to start getting points on the board.

“If we look at the January we’ve had, it’s been a terrible run of fixtures and we haven’t picked up any points. I don’t think that there’s been any disgraceful performances though, we haven’t let ourselves down at any point.

“When we’ve been to Man City, Arsenal and Man United, who have had Rooney and van Persie back and added Juan Mata to give them extra impetus, it’s not panned out nicely for us. I think we let ourselves down at home over Christmas, but I do think that there’s other teams that have got worse fixtures than us on the run-in."

The Bluebirds look to Saturday’s tie against Chris Hughton’s Norwich City in search of a first home win since West Bromwich Albion’s visit to Wales in December, and Turner insists the squad can build on previous performances against Manchester City and in the FA Cup.

“I don’t think there was much difference between our performance at home against Man City and some of the performances where you could say that we let ourselves down,” he said. “For eighty minutes we were by miles the better side against Sunderland, but we just lost our concentration towards the end of the game.

“Not many teams have beaten Man City this year, but we earned that result. It wasn’t a case of smash-and-grab; we earned the result over ninety minutes. I know that if we just stick together and concentrate on the football, I’m confident that we can get the results.”

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