Football League World
·10 August 2022
Football League World
·10 August 2022
Despite Norwich City only just beating Birmingham in the Carabao Cup last night, boss Dean Smith has told Birmingham Live the Canaries deserved the victory in that fixture.
With the club yet to pick up a victory in the Championship, having lost to Cardiff in their opening game and drawn with Wigan, they wanted the win against Birmingham even more in midweek.
Dean Smith’s side looked like they would get the result too, with two goals before halftime from Daniel Sinani and Jacob Lungi Sorensen putting the Canaries 2-0 up with 45 minutes gone on the clock.
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However, in the second half, Birmingham were able to pull the fixture back. Jonathan Leko notched the first goal and then Norwich’s Jonathan Tomkinson put the ball into his own net to send the game to penalties.
Norwich sealed the win via spot-kicks, but it could have gone either way in the fixture. However, despite the game being a draw and the Canaries having to rely on penalties, boss Dean Smith feels his side deserved to be in the next round of the Carabao Cup.
He feels Norwich only ended up having to go to penalties because of a mistake they made themselves, rather than Birmingham’s performance. The Blues equaliser was certainly a mistake on behalf of the Canaries too, with Tomkinson firing in an own goal.
Smith and Norwich then will feel happy to be in the pot for the next round after that win – and speaking about the result, Smith told Birmingham Live: “We gave them a sniff in the second half with a poor ball in midfield and then compounding the error by not stopping Leko’s run and then there was an unfortunate deflection for the equaliser but we kept on trying to win the game right up to the final whistle and I think we deserved to go through. It was the result we deserved because we should never have been taken to penalties. We made a mistake which lead to a goal and unfortunately our mistakes are costing us at the minute.”
Dean Smith’s Norwich just haven’t been up to it in the Championship yet, so he’ll be happy that there is still time to do business in the transfer window this summer.
The Canaries boss will be happy to get a win under their belt but even that result might have gone the other way if not for some luck in the penalties. A loss to Cardiff was not a great way to start the campaign and whilst a point against Wigan is fair, they would feel the side should be picking up a win in that fixture.
Now that the club have been able to go through to the next round of the cup though, they may have some more confidence in getting more league points now. Their next game is against Hull at the weekend and the Tigers will not be an easy team to play in the Championship.
However, Dean Smith is a good manager and if he can sort out some of the errors the Canaries are making and get more points for Norwich, the club should still be in the promotion hunt this season.
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