Cole benefits from McBride's extra help to hit the right note

He would not win any X-Factor contests for being an extrovert, but the time has long since passed since Andy Cole was having to prove himself in front of a sceptical audience. In any case, though winning over a doubtful public did form part of his early career, the Fulham striker showed at Carrow Road that he can still win matches.

He would not win any X-Factor contests for being an extrovert, but the time has long since passed since Andy Cole was having to prove himself in front of a sceptical audience. In any case, though winning over a doubtful public did form part of his early career, the Fulham striker showed at Carrow Road that he can still win matches.

Even when in his prime with Manchester United, Cole preferred to let his feet do the talking. However, on Saturday, he shared his thoughts for once.

This has been a tough season for the west Londoners, including the abject performance against Blackburn nine days ago, but even so Cole has scored seven goals, sometimes playing without a strike partner.

This time Chris Coleman, the Fulham manager, gave his former England international Brian McBride for company and it seemed to suit him, the American laying on the goal.

"It's been good," Cole said. "It's always nice to get a bit of support and I think a lot of teams had got used to us playing one up front. We weren't creating as many chances as we should have been but with big Brian up front I'm really enjoying it. I was fortunate enough for the ball to end up at my feet and I put it in."

There was a hint of offside about the goal, but the referee's assistant gave Cole the benefit of the doubt and even the Norwich manager, Nigel Worthington, agreed with the decision.

What even the most ardent Canaries fan would find difficult to go along with would be Robert Green's assessment of his side's midfield. Green said: "There are some big losses out through injury, but we've got Phil Mulryne and Thomas Helveg in there and pretty much 15 clubs in the Premiership would be happy with that midfield." It is probably fair to assume that Green's Fantasy Football team is not doing all that well.

Back in the reality of the Premiership, Norwich had begun to show signs of life with four points from their last two games, yet they only had one shot on target here. Worthington was talking about bringing players in next month, but was keeping mum about names. Maybe that was his version of The X-Factor.

Goal: Cole (7) 0-1.

Norwich City (4-4-2): Green; Edworthy, Fleming, Doherty, Drury; Bentley, Mulryne (Safri, 63), Helveg, Huckerby; Svensson (Jonson, 68), McKenzie. Substitutes not used: Ward (gk), McVeigh, Shackell.

Fulham (4-4-2): Van der Sar; Volz, Rehman, Pearce, Bocanegra; Legwinski, Diop, Malbranque, Pembridge; Cole, McBride. Substitutes not used: Flitney (gk), Knight, Radzinski, Hammond, Rosenior.

Referee: A Wiley (Staffordshire).

Booked: Norwich: Helveg. Fulham: Volz, Bocanegra, Cole.

Man of the match: Diop.

Attendance: 23,755.