Dean Smith felt his side put in a disciplined performance against Wolverhampton Wanderers as Norwich City came away from Molineux Stadium with a 1-1 draw.
The Norwich head coach switched to a back five for the game and he felt that, along with an ability from the players to get closer to their opponents, paid dividends.
“It was a pleasing performance,” he said. “It’s certainly a thanks to our supporters who have travelled away all through the season. This was the last away journey, and they will have been pleased with what they saw.
“It was a really disciplined first half, without the ball. We have allowed their outside centre backs to have the ball and stopped (Rúben) Neves and (João) Moutinho from opening us up. We restricted them to very few chances.
“I thought if Teemu (Pukki) had had his normal shooting boots on he would have probably scored a hat-trick in the first half, but he got the one and I am pleased for him because the runs he made today were excellent. He caused them problems, which you saw with Conor Coady coming off at half-time.”
Speaking about going five at the back, Dean added that it was not done specifically to combat Wolves, but to stop his own side conceding too many chances.
“It was to stop the bleeding,” he said. “We had conceded too many goals over the last three games since we got relegated and conceded too many big chances. So, we wanted an extra man at the back and we felt the players that we wanted to have the ball, from their team, were their two outside centre-backs and we did that well. We also wanted to stop their sixes getting too much time and space on the ball and we also did that well.
“It was a really disciplined performances from us today and one of our weapons, if you want to call it that, is our attack in transitions and there is nobody better than Teemu Pukki in terms of his movement, it is just unfortunate that he didn’t get a couple more.”
It was unfortunate the equaliser that Norwich City conceded as well, because the free kick was a harsh one on Dimitris Giannoulis who appeared to win the ball.
“I am disappointed with the result in the end because I didn’t think it was a foul for their goal,” said Dean. “It was two yards in front of the linesman and we have seen it clearly on the replay that Dimi (Giannoulis) toes the ball through him.
“Unfortunately, those decisions have not gone for us this season. They ask us why we are so irate when we have got nothing to play for, but Watford got beat and, if we had won that game, it would have put us above Watford today. So, I am annoyed at that but pleased with the performance.”