Dean Smith Manager
Norwich City head coach Dean Smith believes his new side were the ‘better’ team and should have taken all three points against Wolverhampton Wanderers. Wolves were out-shot on their travels by a Norwich side that is still 19th in the Premier League table after adding another point to their total, and Smith was adamant that the Canaries should have leapfrogged Burnley by taking all three. While acknowledging Bruno Lage ‘s side are a ‘very good team’, he was pleased with how his new charges limited Wolves to few chances, and at the other end, ‘created the big chances’ in the game at Carrow Road.
Dean Smith said: “Definitely [it should have been more]. I thought we looked a good team today. I thought we restricted a very good team to few chances. I can’t remember Tim [Krul] making too many saves in the game at all and we’ve created the big chances. The goalkeeper’s made a big save in the first half from Max [Aarons], Ruppy’s [Lukas Rupp] had a good chance, Teemu’s [Pukki] had a couple as well. So we’ve created the big chances and restricted them to very little so that’s all you can ask for. We just want to be a little bit more clinical in the final third. That was certainly a better all-round performance today, definitely. I said last week, Southampton were the better team in the first half. Today, I thought we were the better team. We looked really organised without the ball. I trust the lads with the ball, I know how good they are and they’ve created chances today. I felt after about 20 minutes we needed to just tweak it in midfield and go over with a flatter three. I felt their two tens were getting too much of the ball. The lads, you send a message and they deal with it straight away. So there’s a great understanding of a group out there. I think we’re just on a good run of form at the moment. We’ve won the last two. We’ve got a clean sheet today and should have been all three, I’d love to see what the XG was today, but I’m sure we’ll be heavy favourites on that.”
This stalemate was a far cry from the last time Smith encountered Wolves, a 3-2 defeat when he was still Aston Villa head coach that went some way to ensuring his eventual departure after five successive defeats.
