Cantwell a cracker as drought ends
TODD CANTWELL’S super strike helped to end Norwich’s goal drought as the Canaries reclaimed top spot with their biggest win of the season.
Brentford can go above them again today but at least Daniel Farke’s side are back on the goal trail following 389 minutes of firing blanks.
Farke said: “It was a strange game, we made more mistakes than all
Norwich 4 Stoke 1
the other games this season. But we added a ruthless and cutting edge in the final third – four goals, I can’t complain.”
Cantwell and Teemu Pukki netted before the break, with Emi Buendia also on target after Nick Powell pulled one back.
Pukki added a penalty fourth 10 minutes from the end after Joe Allen had upended Buendia.
However, the scoreline glossed over some dodgy defending by the hosts.
Stoke boss Michael O’neill was as much concerned about a Nathan Collins injury late on as the result.
He said: “It was just how Nathan landed. He was in a lot of pain, but hopefully it will not be too bad.”
DAVID DE GEA has been warned by Ole Gunnar Solskjaer that his medals will count for nothing in his battle with Dean Henderson to be Manchester United’s No.1 keeper. De Gea, United’s £350,000-a-week highest-paid player and the only regular in Solskjaer’s team who has won the Premier League, blundered big time last weekend when Everton came back to force a 3-3 draw at Old Trafford.
Henderson, 23, kept a clean sheet in the FA Cup win overwest Ham on Tuesday night and is now cranking up the pressure on the goalkeeper who has been a United mainstay for the past decade.
Solskjaer’s blunt message to the Spaniard ahead of today’s visit towest Brom makes it clear that the past counts for nothing as he plots a better future.
The United boss said: “It’s not about who has got the most trophies. I’m in a very fortunate position to have the goalkeeper department that I have – and it was a conscious decision we made to bring Dean back to have real competition.
“Dean has made it harder and harder for me, of course, to leave him out because whenever he plays he does really well.
“We have, I would say, at least two players in every position who would feel, ‘I am a first choice’.the keeper position is no different.”
United rewarded Henderson with a new £100,000-a-week contract when he returned from a season-long loan at Sheffield
United in the summer.
He has kept five clean sheets in his 12 United appearances but has not played a Premier League game for two months.