However, his shortcomings should not overshadow the fine start Bryan Gunn has made in his managerial career since he took over from Glenn Roeder. The 3-3 scoreline away to the league leaders seemed to have set the stage rather nicely for the visit of in-form Bristol City, but then the curse of D'Urso struck and the Canaries were reduced to ten men against twelve. One has to include the referee in the Robins' line-up, because he undoubtedly turned in "man of the match" performance as far as the Bristol City fans were concerned.
Even before he awarded the infamous penalty to the visitors and sent off Gary Doherty for the alleged foul, he had already turned down two justifiable penalty appeals from the home players and their fans. Worse followed in the second half when Adam Drury was the subject of the most obvious foul of the match, but once again Mr D'Urso turned down penalty appeals from everyone in the ground, except for the away fans, who must have thought they were enjoying a late Christmas.
The Robins are certainly flying higher than the Canaries in the league table, but it is doubtful if they would have flown away from Carrow Road with anything more than a point, had it not been for the performance of the not-so-handy Andy, whose red card for Gary Doherty was quite rightly rescinded by the FA after the appeals panel had viewed the video evidence!
Unfortunately this does nothing to alter the result or bring back a lost point, which brings me to the old roast chestnut of the benefits of giving referees instant access to action replays.
As soon as the Doc's tackle was shown on the screen in front of the press box, it was obvious to me and to Footymad that the ball had been played before any contact occurred with Dele Adebola.
Had Mr D'Urso seen the replay he would probably have refused to believe the evidence of his own eyes, but if an official in the stand had the authority to tell the ref, via an earpiece, that the video evidence was contrary to his initial decision, perhaps D'Urso-type errors could be eliminated from the game.
By the time the FA decides to introduce that kind of technology no doubt Mr D will have made a fortune from appearing in those: "He should have gone to Specsavers" commercials!
But turning to the more immediate business of the game at Preston, Gunny and Co will undoubtedly have been working with David Marshall on the quality of his clearances and generally urging all the players to get stuck into the game much sooner than they did against the Robins.