Norwich City

Although naturally disappointed with the result against Preston North End, Norwich City goalkeeper Tim Krul says the Canaries need to stay positive and now move on to focus on their next game against Bolton Wanderers on Saturday.

The Canaries saw themselves 2-0 down after only 24 minutes at Deepdale and although they showed great spirit to try and get back into the game – a second half strike by Sean Maguire sealed Preston a 3-1 victory, Teemu Pukki’s 93^rd minute goal proving only a consolation for the visitors, who dropped to second in the table after Wednesday night’s games.

Tim Krul told canaries.co.uk after the match: “It’s really frustrating because it’s a missed opportunity I think - but you can’t start like we did.

“In the changing room we were warned for a difficult night, everybody had to be on their game. I just don’t think we started well at all against a team like this, who were hyped up to play against us. We know teams will go after us because we’re obviously challenging for the top spot – we just need to be better prepared. We need to take it on the chin, we’ve been on an amazing run but we just need a reaction on Saturday now.”

Although 2-0 down at the break having also missed a penalty kick, City had a good start to the second half to try and get themselves back in the game. Former City ‘keeper Declan Rudd was named man of the match having denied his former Club on numerous occasions with a string of saves.

“We never stopped trying,” reflected Krul. “We’ve had a lot of chances in the second half. Obviously we missed a penalty. But if you go 2-1 I think we would have turned it around like we have been doing. Even in the second half we must have had four or five chances, some cleared off the line and a couple of good saves. It just wasn’t meant to be tonight. We just have to accept it, be disappointed  tonight, but there’s a massive game on Saturday we have to win now.  

“We have to stay positive, we’re in a great position. There’s no point getting stressed out now. We’ve got some amazing opportunities coming up and it’s nice to play in three days again because we can turn it round again.

“Like I said I’m not faulting the effort at all. I just think we needed to be a bit more clever in the first half. We weren’t up for the races from the start, we show we’ve got some great quality here but we need to show it from the first minute.”

He added; “Sometimes we can’t have it all. We’ve been on 13 unbeaten away, you are going to lose a couple but we still have 14 games to go, a massive opportunity and we’re in a great position – we could have not wished for a better position to be in at this stage of the league. Don’t get too carried away with it we just need a reaction on Saturday.”