CANARIES ARE OUR MAN CITY, SAYS JONES
DANIEL Farke warned his Norwich City players to keep their focus after they cruised past Luton Town.
Two goals from Teemu Pukki, which took his tally for the season up to 20, and one from Todd Cantwell made it seven straight wins for Farke’s side to take them another step closer to an immediate return to the Premier League.
But their manager is taking nothing for granted, even though his side have plenty of breathing space with just 11 matches left to play.
“First of all I must congratulate my players for another excellent performance – it was probably even better than the one against Brentford on Wednesday,” he said.
“They put in a lot of energy, both physically and mentally, into that game, but they were still able to produce again just three days later. That is what winners do.
“They want it much and showed it today – all the players, whether they played for 90 minutes or one minute, were committed and focused and it was another good win.
“It has taken us on to 76 points, but we still need another two wins to get past 80 and five wins to get past 90 so there is still plenty of work to be done.
“We can enjoy this for a few days, but then we need to look forward. It is a case of staying fully concentrated on every game.”
The Hatters nearly took a shock lead six minutes in when James Collins popped up to hit a post from George Moncur’s cross.
But the hosts took control thereafter, with Pukki handing them the lead after 12 minutes.
Cantwell slipped the ball to him 15 yards out and the Finnish striker fired the ball into the top corner.
It took an excellent reaction stop from Simon Sluga to prevent Pukki from making it 2-0 on the half-hour mark after a brilliant move down the right, but Norwich kept the pressure on and were rewarded with a second goal two minutes before the break.
There was a slice of luck about it, with Emi Buendia’s cross taking a big deflection off Matty Pearson to fall nicely into the path of Pukki inside the six-yard box.
Pukki then almost completed a first-half hat-trick, with Sluga tipping over an audacious back heeled flick.
Norwich maintained their dominance after the interval and wrapped the points up with a third goal 17 minutes from time.
It followed a swift break down the left, with Cantwell cutting inside and unleashing a low shot from the edge of the box that took a slight deflection on its way past Sluga.
Luton boss Nathan Jones admitted he had no complaints with the defeat.
“We were up against a very good side, the best side in the league,” he said. “At this level Norwich are Manchester City – they are difficult to score against and they score plenty themselves.
“To be honest we are not at their level – that’s not being negative, just realistic.
“The players put in a shift today, they stuck at it and didn’t throw in the towel, but I certainly can’t complain about the result.”