Norwich head coach Johannes Hoff Thorup had mixed emotions after watching his side beat Stoke 4-2 to stay in the thick of the Championship play-off race.
Thorup was delighted with a result which kept the Canaries just four points off the top six but irritated by the fact they let a first-half lead slip and made life more difficult for themselves than they should have.
He said: “I am a little bit annoyed to be honest because it should never have been a 4-2 game, it should have been a 5-0 one.
“Not for the first time this season we score a goal, then drop back and lose a bit of momentum. And then we give the ball away and they have a goal out of nowhere.
“In the second half it nearly happened again when we scored and then gave it away in a central area and they get a goal which is fortunately ruled out for offside.
“We made problems for ourselves and, with due respect to Stoke, against a better team than them it could have ended up as a draw.
“Having said that I was pleased with a lot of our play in the final third – it was a good offensive performance from the lads, we created lots of opportunities and scored some beautiful goals.
“When we are at our best we are definitely up there with a chance of getting in the play-offs.”
Norwich made their early dominance count after 32 minutes when Lewis Dobbin latched onto Marcelino Nunez’s sublime through ball to put them ahead.
Lewis Baker equalised against the run of play on the stroke of half-time after the hosts had carelessly coughed up possession – but there was only one team in it after the break.
Josh Sargent swiftly made it 2-1 after pouncing on a Stoke error and it was seven goals in six games for the American midway through the half with a cracking finish from just outside the box.
A Junior Tchamadeu own goal stretched Norwich’s lead seven minutes later before Baker netted an added-time penalty after substitute Million Manhoef had been fouled.
Stoke boss Mark Robins felt his side had let themselves down after equalising on the stroke of half-time.
“I though we lost our discipline in the second half – we let them drag us around and gave them carte blanche to do what they wanted,” he said.
“You have got to work within a framework – you can make mistakes but you can’t allow a good team like Norwich to do what they did to us today.
“We didn’t defend well enough, we didn’t win enough duels, and allowed them to walk through us at times.
“When you score two goals away from home it’s very disappointing.
“We gave them too much respect in the first half, allowed them to dictate the game, but we defended well enough and got our equaliser.
“But what I saw in the second half was not good enough.”
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