Canaries fall flat as Baggies snatch victory

NORWICH boss Paul Lambert revealed striker James Vaughan had been taken to hospital after being left with a serious facial injury after catching an elbow late on in yesterday’s 1-0 Barclays Premier League defeat at Carrow Road.

Peter Odemwingie’s early goal proved enough to give the Baggies their first league win of the season. The Nigerian capitalised on a mix-up between Ritchie de Laet and rookie keeper Declan Rudd, in for the suspended John Ruddy, to fire the Baggies ahead after three minutes.

Norwich, now without a victory in four league games, had a few half-chances but did not really test Ben Foster, and would have been out of contention with 15 minutes left but for a fine penalty save from Rudd.

However, in stoppage time Vaughan was flattened by a stray elbow from Gabriel Tamas at a corner, an incident missed by the referee, but could have brought a red card as well as a chance of redemption for the home side from the spot had it been seen as deliberate.

Vaughan came on as a second-half sub having recovered from a knee injury picked up in pre-season following his move from Everton, but had to go off for treatment and must be assessed.

Lambert said: “James has gone to see the plastic surgeon at the minute, and it is a bad one. It has gone straight through the lip and they can’t just stitch it up, the specialist has got to look at it. He had got a really nasty gash in his upper lip, which will need a bit of work. Hopefully we will sort it tonight, and we will have to see how he is.”

Lambert added: “I think it was a penalty. I have seen it on tape and he has caught him. The big moments in games you have got to get right and more often than not, we never got that this afternoon. The penalty against us was pretty soft, considering what happened to James.”

West Brom had lost all three of their Premier League games before yesterday, though two of those were against Manchester United and Chelsea, while Stoke stole a 1-0 win in the last minute at The Hawthorns.

Baggies boss Roy Hodgson felt his team had done it the hard way this afternoon.

“We were our own worst enemy at times,” he said. “We gave the ball away an awful lot, especially after missing the penalty. At 2-0 it would’ve been a lot quieter last 20 minutes than we got.”

NORWICH: Rudd, Naughton, Barnett, De Laet, Tierney, Bennett, Crofts, Bradley Johnson, Surman (Hoolahan 62), Holt (Morison 70), Chris Martin (Vaughan 70).

WEST BROM: Foster, Reid, Olsson, Tamas, Shorey, Dorrans (Morrison 69), Mulumbu, Scharner, Thomas (Brunt 84), Long (Tchoyi 88), Odemwingie.

Referee: Mark Halsey (Lancashire).