Norwich City head coach Dean Smith felt his side were in with a chance of taking something from Saturday’s defeat to Spurs when they were 1-0 down, but Davison Sanchez’s second-half strike knocked the stuffing out of the Canaries.
“It’s the scoreline and there’s nothing we can do to change that,” he said, discussing the 3-0 loss. “There are things we can certainly learn from. I thought we came here and adapted to a game plan really well in a different system. We controlled the game for long periods if I’m honest.
“We were good on the ball and moved it well and quickly. We created big chances, but unfortunately they were more clinical than us. The players know it’s their job to score goals and we have to spread that around.
“We had three big chances among Josh, Adam and Teemu. All three players will know, I don’t need to tell them, they can be better. It’s something we’re working on. The shape of the team today was really good.
“I know it’s a 3-0 scoreline, xG will say it was a pretty even game, but it’s not about xG, it’s about creating good chances and the more you create, the better chance you’ve got of scoring.
“If we’re not creating many chances at all against Tottenham and get beat 3-0, then I’m a worried man, but I thought we more than matched them today. Unfortunately, the second goal killed the momentum that we’d built up.
“We’d restricted them to long-range efforts, they didn’t have many big chances, but sometimes you have to say the quality can tell. That first goal was a good player scoring a good goal and sometimes you have to take that. On the whole, I was pleased with the performance.
“You don’t want to come to Tottenham and be gung-ho when you’ve got players like Son, Moura and Kane ready to pounce on any transition, as was shown at times today. We defended that well.
“At 1-0, we were always in the game and I always fancied us to create opportunities. 2-0 makes it difficult and the second goal was sloppy, as was the third goal.
“I’m disappointed and I told the players that. I’m annoyed about the second goal and they also know about that, but there’s enough from what I’ve seen today that gives me hope.”
The defeat brought Smith’s unbeaten run as City head coach to an end ahead of the visit of Manchester United on Saturday.
“We will need to make Carrow Road a really tough place for people to come,” he said. “We’ve shown that we can do that already. I think we deserved more than one point on the road from the last two games.”