Norwich defender Ryan Bennett charged by FA after tweeting 'I'll finish you in a couple of seconds'

The England Under-21 international has been dealt with by his club

Ryan Bennett (GETTY IMAGES)

Norwich defender Ryan Bennett has been charged with misconduct by the Football Association over comments made on Twitter.

The Barclays Premier League club last night issued a statement saying the England Under-21 international had been the "subject of internal disciplinary procedures" in wake of the posts, which have now resulted in formal action from the governing body.

In a statement, the FA said: "Ryan Bennett has breached FA Rule E3 - use of abusive and/or insulting and/or threatening words in comments posted on a Twitter account.

"He has until 4pm on Friday 26 April to respond to the charge."

Bennett, who joined Norwich from Peterborough last year, scored City's opening goal in their 2-1 win over Reading on Saturday. His Twitter page has been closed down.

Bennett is understood to have been involved in some heated exchanges with football supporters on the micro-blogging site, responding to one following Norwich's defeat at Arsenal with "I'll finish you in a couple of seconds."

In his final posts before closing his account, the defender wrote: "Officially going to delete twitter! Seems you can't say what you want on here, public can say why they want bit seems I can't reply!

"Being charged by FA, for replying to someone coming for me, that's the reason so bye bye all."

Norwich's win over Reading was only a second in 17 Premier League games, although they have suffered just three defeats in the last 11 - one of those at champions Manchester United, as well as Arsenal and relegation-battlers Wigan.

Canaries boss Chris Hughton feels his men probably need at least one more win from their remaining four games to be secure.

"Nobody has been panicking. Every game we have gone into, we were looking at the opportunity to win the game and every time we have not, we have looked at the next game," he said, quoted in the Eastern Daily Press.

"It hasn't been difficult (to stay calm). We have a good group of players here who look at what the facts are. The facts are we started the (Reading) game in 14th place, now we're in 13th place, so the league table doesn't lie.

"We have been on a poor run by our standards but, equally, earlier in the season we went on a fantastic run for a club of our size where we went 10 games unbeaten, which is very, very tough in this division. So if we can just perhaps get a little bit more consistency it will certainly be a little bit better for us."

Hughton added: "Overall it has been a fairly decent season. We now have to make sure we finish it well."

England goalkeeper John Ruddy has recovered from a thigh injury which has sidelined him since November and could come back into contention for Saturday's trip to Stoke.

PA