Finger pointed over postponement

Roy Whalley has accused Norwich manager Paul Lambert of putting pressure on the officials to ensure Walsall's game with Norwich was called off.

Referee Mark Haywood postponed yesterday's clash at the Banks's Stadium just 55 minutes before kick off because of a frozen pitch.

And chief executive Whalley says Canaries boss Lambert put Haywood under pressure after the official deemed the surface playable at 11:30am.

He said: "The referee first inspected the pitch at 11.30 and was satisfied that it was playable.

"It was only after pressure from the Norwich manager that he had another look and eventually called the game off less than an hour before kick-off."

But Lambert has denied those claims and says the call was purely down to the official.

"The referee is the one that makes that decision, nobody else. He came up and told myself and Chris (Hutchings) that the players' safety was a concern and that he didn't want the game to go ahead," he said.

"His view was that you'd be running on to soft ground, then on to hard ground which is a potential problem with injury."

It was the second postponement in two days for the Saddlers after their Boxing Day trip to Bristol Rovers was also called off because of a frozen pitch.

Their Christmas programme has been decimated by the weather but they have remained 10th in League One, although have slipped seven points adrift of the play-offs.

No new dates for the rearranged games have been announced.