COCKY CANARIES?
Farke denies arrogance at Norwich after late leveller
ANIEL FARKE promised Norwich City’s fans that his squad were not distracted by Premier League glory as they relied on teemu Pukki’s late goal to earn a point against lowly Wigan Athletic yesterday. the closer farke’s men get to the top-flight promised land, the nervier they are becoming, and they were outplayed by the battling Latics.
five thousand Norwich fans got up in the middle of the night to venture northwards for this lunchtime kick-off, expecting to see the Canaries put Wednesday night’s surprise 2-2 draw with reading behind them. Instead, they were within nine minutes of losing this clash thanks to reece James’s dodgy firsthalf penalty. And although Pukki scored a fine equaliser to earn a share of the spoils, the feeling is growing that Norwich are getting distracted by how close they now are to the Premier League.
But farke disputed that and insisted yesterday’s showing was just a bad day at the office against a Wigan side fighting for their Championship existence. He said: ‘to equalise late on we proved again our mental strength and I’m not concerned at all.
‘We are down to earth and are not carried away by all the praise and the situation. We don’t have the feeling that we’re already in the Premier League — we want to go on and go into each and every game to win it. It’s not over. We know we’re in a brilliant situation and this point was important.
‘If you had told me before this game that we’d still be seven points clear I would definitely have taken it. Yes, we need some points but we will go on and stay greedy.’
this was no classic as both teams took their time to settle and lacked any real finesse in the final third. Leon Clarke missed one chance for the home side after 25 minutes, blazing over from the edge of the area, and Norwich’s season-long ruthlessness in front of goal was sorely lacking here.
eventually, Wigan got a lucky break as they won a borderline penalty just before the interval. Samy Morsy drilled a low effort goalwards that hit Ben Godfrey’s leg and bounced up and on to his forearm. there was little he could have done to prevent the ricochet but referee James Linington pointed to the spot and James calmly slotted the ball past tim Krul.
farke added: ‘there was no intention so I can’t understand how you can give a penalty. It was more than a harsh decision but we are all human beings.’
After the restart, a James effort from 25 yards only just crept over the Norwich bar before Krul made a fine one-on-one block from Clarke to keep Norwich in the game.
farke made a treble substitution with 15 minutes remaining but it was Pukki who made all the difference, latching on to Kenny McLean’s through ball before coolly sliding past Christian Walton from 15 yards out.
Both teams continued to go for the jugular but a decisive goal never came, although Clarke had one effort disallowed deep into injury time for offside.
farke could not have been disappointed if the goal had been allowed to stand after his side’s struggles and Wigan boss Paul Cook agreed that his team had been superior on the day. He said: ‘I thought we did enough to win the game if I’m being really truthful.
‘We’ve taken the game to them, we’ve engaged them, we’ve pressed them at the top end of the pitch and we’re unlucky not to have beaten them.’