Canaries in tune as they move closer to Championship title
DANIEL FARKE hailed his Norwich players after they crushed managerless QPR to make it eight wins on the trot – and move eight points clear at the top of the Championship.
Norwich were in command from the word go against a poor QPR side and were 2-0 up inside the opening 12 minutes.
Unmarked Emi Buendia swept the ball home from close range and Marco Stiepermann had the freedom of Carrow Road to fire home the second from the edge of the box.
They continued to dominate and Teemu Pukki made it 3-0 just before half-time after Buendia had caught Luke Freeman in possession.
Buendia saw red midway through the second period for a late lunge on Josh Scowen, but Norwich still had enough about them to grab a fourth near the end, with Pukki bursting through to score his 27th goal of the season.
‘We have been set many different challenges in recent weeks but we always seem to find the answers,’ said Farke. ‘It doesn’t surprise that we keep winning games because I have a lot of faith in this group — but I am unbelievably proud of them.
‘We played some excellent football, especially in the first half, scored three goals and could easily have had four or five. ‘We are in a good situation now.’ Farke said he could understand why Buendia was shown a red card – but hopes he will not receive a ban as a result.
‘We were winning 3-0, the ball was in a non-dangerous area and there was no need to go into the tackle so quickly. Emi is a young player and he needs to learn from this,’ he said.
‘But it wasn’t a tackle from behind. Hopefully when the EFL have had a look they will decide that Emi should not be banned for that.’
QPR caretaker boss John Eustace admitted his side could have no complaints about the final scoreline.
‘We were up against a really good Norwich side who are probably going to win the league,’ he said.
‘Having said that, I was very disappointed with the way we defended early on.’