EPL – Norwich vs Burnley: Following the clarets’ impressive win against Everton, the club had momentum on their side. However, with the Toffees’ win against Man United, they were certainly under pressure. Norwich, meanwhile, was in desperate need of a win to have any chance of keeping their survival mission alive.
Lees-Melou put the hosts ahead in the 9th minute of the contest. The remainder of the contest remained fairly close fought. However, Dyche’s men came close to equalising on a few occasions.
With Pukki’s 86th minute goal, the result was sealed for the Canaries, who are now just three points behind Burnley.
EPL – Norwich vs Burnley: Player ratings
Norwich: Krul (6), Byram (6), Hanley (7), Gibson (7), Giannoulis (7), Normann (7), Dowell (6), McLean (6), Lees-Melou (7), Pukki (7), Rashica (7).
Subs: Rupp (6), Tzolis (N/A), Williams (N/A)
Burnley: Pope (7), Lowton (7), Collins (6), Tarkowski (6), Taylor (6), Lennon (6), Westwood (7), Brownhill (6), Cornet (6), Rodriguez (6), Weghorst (5)
Subs: Barnes (N/A), Vydra (5), McNeil (6)
Man of the match: Ben Gibson
Managers’ reaction
Norwich manager Dean Smith: “I think we defended our box really well when we had to because they put a lot of balls in there. We showed real quality on transition in the first half. We spoke to Pierre [Lees-Melou] – he has real quality – so we spoke about how he should get more goals and it’s great to see that one go in for him, but the team’s work ethic was really good today.
“Both teams have struggled for goals all season, so that first goal was always going to be important. We had to be resolute and dogged in our defending at times. We started to show quality, which has been lacking from low confidence, in the second half.
“I still think we can do better on the ball, we gave it away cheaply at times. As pleased as I am with the result, that’s two clean sheets on the spin now. [This result] shows we are still fighting, we can stretch it to the distance where we can. That gives our dressing room an awful lot of belief. I’ve said to the players, if we win two or three on the spin then it all looks different.”
Burnley manager Sean Dyche: “It was a big step forward against Everton and a big step back today. The league table doesn’t look any different, just a game less, so the challenge is still in front of us. We still have to close that gap, we’ve definitely missed a chance to do that today.
“But it’s a team performance. You have to find more moments than that [chance]. We huffed and puffed around their goal area. We weren’t opening them up as much as we’d liked, but that’s a challenge in football, of course. An odd kind of freedom comes [from this result] because more people will be writing us off and we’re often strong when written off.”
