It was very disappointing to go out of The FA Cup at Upton Park last weekend. We're in a position at the minute where we just want to win games, it doesn’t matter which competition, winning breeds confidence and it could have helped when we return to Premiership action on Saturday.

The FA Cup in particular is a great competition to be involved in; I have a wonderful respect for it and love to be in it. So I wasn’t pleased with our first-half display, the passing was poor. But credit to the boys, we picked it up in the second half and had three wonderful chances to win the game.  But we didn’t take them and when you fail to score in those situations, you get what you deserve. West Ham scored the winner with about 10 minutes to go.

That's been a major factor in our season so far - our finishing needs to improve. We’ve missed good chances and that’s the reason we haven’t got more points. Bringing in a new striker this week will only help.

For £3m, we've signed a very good player, for now and for the future. Dean Ashton was top of my list and the club backed me all the way.

It all started after the Liverpool game last Monday. I had a meeting with the board and we decided that we’d make a move. Our Chief Executive, Neil Doncaster, put in a call to Crewe and things moved along smoothly and steadily before Dean put pen to paper.

I’m usually involved in all the stages of a transfer with Neil and the secretary, Kevan Platt. I'm very aware of the financial situation at the football club, so we work very closely to try and make things happen and on this occasion it did, we got our man - to a lot of people's amazement. We’re delighted to get him here and he’s fitting in very well.

Dean's arrival hasn't just boosted our striking options; he has also added quality to our injury-depleted squad. David Bentley is the latest to add to the list, he looks likely to be out for the next 10-12 weeks after doing his medial ligaments in a nasty challenge at West Ham. It's unfortunate for him and us as he was doing very well.

He’s also taking up one of our two permitted loan slots, so without him available for so long, we are talking with Arsenal to see if we can come to some sort of agreement where we cancel his loan. Unfortunately, they don’t have anyone else we could take in place of David, though. They have a couple of injuries to contend with themselves, so need all the bodies that they have.

We do have another loan space available, and we’ll try and fill that before the end of the window. I have looked at the possibility of bringing in some more experienced international players, but at Norwich we always consider the longer term, even though we know the consequences of relegation. We want to try and get good, young, quality players to build a solid squad for the future. We have a long list of players that we are ringing up about, so we’ll just have to see what comes up.

Our injuries have opened the doors for the likes of young Ryan Jarvis and Danny Crow; all of a sudden they find themselves playing in the Premiership, and in Ryan's case, scoring. He produced a wonderful goal against Liverpool showing great confidence to control the ball, cut inside onto his left and execute a great shot past Dudek.

We could do with more of the same against Aston Villa on Saturday. We're going for the three points. I’ve told the players I want the performance level and work-rate to remain high, and hopefully, sooner rather than later, we’ll get our first win away from home under our belts.

A glass of red wine, purely medicinal, and a good night's sleep tonight and we’ll be ready for them.

Catch up with you soon,

Nigel Worthington.