Norwich City head coach Dean Smith has given canaries.co.uk his post-match reaction to Sunday’s 5-0 defeat at home to Tottenham Hotspur.
“We started okay but it’s a similar story to our season - we’ve made individual mistakes to give goals away,” he said. “You do that against good players and you get beat by this scoreline.
“I thought too many heads dropped certainly after the third goal went in. I think we were all looking at the clock at that stage with the quality that they’ve got on the pitch.
The first goal, we knew how Tottenham played and the danger was going to be a ball over the top for players who have got a little bit of pace. We didn’t cover the space for the deep run and they’ve got in and scored.
“We worked a couple of good chances in the first half, but didn’t quite take them ourselves. Again, that’s the story of our season - we haven’t taken our good moments when they’ve come along and the opposition have hurt us.
“In the second half we weren’t strong enough. Dimi gets done for the third goal and they put it in the top corner. After that, then it’s very difficult. I’ve been in that position as a player. It’s very difficult then to keep fighting. Some of them kept fighting but I could see some heads certainly dropped and it was a tough last 20 minutes.
“I look at Tottenham and the best team won today by a long way. We played a similar system to them. When we had the ball they dropped deep into a mid block, but what they do when they press you is they press you at pace and we didn’t do that well enough at all.
“If we want to be successful in the way I want to play then we’ve got to be winning the ball back a lot quicker than we do and we’ve got to get up to people and make contact a lot quicker than we do.
“That’s one of the biggest things, I don’t think we’ve been very good at counter pressing. We’ve lost the ball and we accept that we’ve lost it, and that will change during pre-season.
“It gives me a good idea of what we’ve got here and what we need to work on, not that I didn’t know anyway. When the players have got an opportunity with the last game of the season to show what they are and whether they’re Premier League standard, unfortunately it didn’t happen for them and we all take responsibility for that.”
Dean was grateful that a number of City supporters stayed at Carrow Road to watch the team’s lap of thanks, and gave a message to the fans regarding the future.
“I can promise the supporters, who were brilliant out there again today who stayed to clap us even though they half don’t want to do it because it’s a relegation season but we have to thank them and give them the appreciation for following us, that we’ll come back fighting next season, have a successful pre-season and hopefully go and have a successful season.
“We’ve done it historically the last couple of times we’ve been in the Championship but we also know how hard it is and I’ve reminded the players of that, but the top of this football club have managed to do it, I’ve done it before myself and Shakey has as well, so we’ll get the right balance with the people we’re bringing in and we’ll improve the people who are here.
“It’s hard to clap your players when you’ve just got beaten 5-0 in a relegation season, but we understand what a unique football club this is and there’s a massive togetherness with the supporters. Let’s hope this time next season we’re all celebrating together.”