Plenty discussed by the PNE boss in his post-match press conference at Carrow Road

I know you're only looking to the next game but longer term, are you really clear what needs to happen here? And do you want to be the guy to drive that?

“We've got to improve, simple,” said Heckingbottom. “We made, in my opinion, the first step last year with what we could do and every year you've got to try and improve. I've been really clear to Peter, Craig and Ian what we need to do and what I think will help us on that journey, first step... we need to commit and try and do it.”

About the team visually, you mentioned it after Coventry that you could see a lack of belief. Is it confidence? They’re not chucking it in?

“Yeah, confidence,” said Heckingbottom. “Even first half, I said we started alright but I wasn’t smelling the same aggression that I want to see from us. I did second half, I thought we were good. The Coventry one, they were good. Listen, we spoke about it in the week.

“They were at it. We showed clips of them doing it. We were competing, they were just hungry, they could smell the finish line. We’ve just gone over us, all the games and all the clips of us when we've done that to teams. For me, you could see it again second half. We didn't let Norwich out. I just wish we'd have got the goal and they could have felt that tension and then who knows what would’ve happened.”

You’ve already touched on it but next Friday, do you want everybody approaching that like a final?

“Every game should be a final and you can't shirk them because that's where you learn, that's where you see,” said Heckingbottom. “That's why I've got no problem building games up because ultimately, if you want to be successful, you've got to play in big games. It's good to see how people respond to the build-up in the week, how they respond when that whistle goes. So yeah, I've got no problem building games up.”

It's a difficult time for the lads right now, how are they?

“Yeah, a lot of them haven't been in this position a lot,” said Heckingbottom. “Because of the start we had and that's why I didn't speak to you guys - and I've just been asked again - about play-offs and that, I won't talk about it because it's just nonsense until this stage in the season.

“I also know how fine the margins are and how flat out we were at the start of the season. Things do turn and negativity can come that shouldn't really be there for these lads. These lads give everything... the quality of players we're playing against and if we'd have started in a different way and gone up the league, there wouldn't be that.

“I get that, I get that, but I have to be realistic about that as well and judge the effort of the group, where they are, but also where they are mentally as well and how we help them through it. But you can see again today, things went against us, our mistake, the referee, no one felt sorry for themselves. No one did and we should have got right back into that game and we didn't.”

Even with all that, at Bristol City on the 4th of January, you can't have expected a run like this, can you?

“No, but I've also been about long enough to know that it happens,” Heckingbottom told BBC Lancashire. “No matter where you are in the league, it happens and at the minute we are getting punished for the things we're getting wrong. We have a bad performance, we get beat; we have a good performance, we're not picking up the wins.

“That's on us. That's what we have to correct and we have to be really committed to getting everything right, a perfect performance. When we don't, we need those little things to go our way as well because we know we're playing against good quality.”

Is it a mentality thing to get through this? Will it make them stronger, tougher... some of the younger lads who've not been through it before? You've got some lads who've been through it three or four times haven't you?

“It'll always define you, define where you end up,” Heckingbottom told BBC Lancashire. “Some people don't like it. If you get through it, it makes you tougher, stronger. That's what football is.

“You're either a player who ends up at a level where it's comfortable and you get picked every week, or you're a player who strives to... and like I said, we knew we took a gamble in the summer with what we did.

“The big change around, we had to free up the money in the squad and change it around. A lot of players who've not been at this level before but we needed to do it, we needed to take that risk. We've got to break that cycle here somehow and try and change that glass ceiling that appears to be there.”

It was here before you, wasn't it?

“We've got to change it, haven't we?” Heckingbottom told BBC Lancashire. “There's no way I've come here to accept not improving, on and off the pitch not improving. That's everyone's job and we're committed to doing it.”