Norwich City midfielder Todd Cantwell was delighted with the team’s performance and grit to find a late winner against Birmingham City on Tuesday night.
Despite dominance from the first whistle, it took 87 minutes for the Canaries to break the Blues down, finding the only goal of the evening through substitute Mario Vrancic.
Speaking to canaries.co.uk post-match, Cantwell was certain only one team should’ve taken the win on the night, emphasising the change the new signings have made to the dressing room.
“It was important, I think for pretty much the whole game we dominated," said Cantwell. "We were starting to get a little bit frustrated towards the end and I think you could sense the relief when the goal finally went in. It was a thoroughly deserved win, definitely.”
“It’s a top change in here, it really is. The new lads, they came in and everyone gets on. I think when everyone gets on you want to work for each other, you can sense that when we’re out there.
“Ultimately, the football we were playing tonight is exactly how we want to play and although we didn’t score all the chances we made, if we’ve got the ball, they can’t score. We can definitely take a lot from that tonight.
“I didn’t feel as sharp as I should, but you need to play, it’s my first game in a while and I was just happy to be out there, to be honest.”
It wasn’t the first time Vrancic had come off the bench to score a crucial goal for the Canaries, having done so plenty of times in the 2018-2019 season. Speaking on his goal, Cantwell praised the midfielder’s attitude to coming off the bench and changing the game.
“He’s a crucial player in the sense that he can come off the bench and produce something like that and he’s willing to come off the bench and do that.
“He’s come on and been right at it straight away, sometimes it’s hard to get into a game, but we had a lot of the ball and it suits him. It was a perfect move and I’m very delighted it went in.”
The Canaries enjoyed most of the possession against the Blues with 74% possession, something unheard of in last season’s Premier League campaign. Cantwell expects a lot of teams to follow the same pattern as Birmingham.
“It’s a challenge! It’s different because last season we weren’t allowed to have that amount of the ball. I think we’ve learnt a lot from last year and how that felt to not have the ball, and everyone in that changing room wants to play the same way, that’s why it works.
“I think a lot of teams will do that this year, whether they choose to or not, I think it’ll be difficult for other teams because we do keep the ball. When we’re at it and playing quickly, I don’t think there’s many teams that can get close to it.
“We need to learn to punish teams early. If we scored early in that game, I think it’s over by half-time, but we did make a lot of chances.
“If we weren’t making any, I’d say okay we had possession for what, but we’re moving in the right direction.”
Finally, asked about the squad depth, Cantwell believes the team have got plenty of options at their disposal to keep the wins consistently coming.
“Definitely, we’ve got options whatever way we need to play to beat a team. We’ve got pace and options up front, a big striker, a technical striker, we have definitely got options. As long as we continue to want to fight for each other we’re heading in the right direction.
“It was a great win on Saturday, a great win tonight and hopefully we can get another one on Saturday.”