Daniel Farke may be in charge of the Premier League’s basement dweller, but you couldn’t tell by his demeanor following Norwich City’s 1-0 win over Leicester City on Friday.
The German manager did a long lap around Carrow Road after the final whistle, taking time to applaud fans all around the ground. After eventually making his way to the media room, he was in awe of where the world has taken him.
“To be here against Leicester playing in the best league in the world against one of the best teams in this league with a well-deserved win and a clean sheet, it’s quite good,” Farke said in the post-match press conference. “I have many compliments for my team.”
Jamal Lewis scored the game’s only goal in the 71st minute, giving Norwich City a massive boost in the relegation battle. They now sit just three points back of the other two teams in the relegation zone and four adrift of safety.
“We know that we are in a good shape. All the last five games before Wolverhampton, we were on a top-class level,” Farke said. “Even against Wolverhampton, we were good in periods but not physical enough in the duels and not switched on enough in the soft skills. We spoke about this a lot in the recent days and the lads delivered a perfect performance in these terms today.”
Norwich was dangerous throughout the match, attacking in bunches against a toothless Leicester City side clearly missing an injured Jamie Vardy. The numbers aren’t exactly kind, with the Canaries racking up just 0.6 xG on 11 total shots, but they held long spells of dangerous possession and made Kasper Schmeichel by far the busier of the two goalkeepers.
Farke pointed to the hard work up and down the pitch from his players in the trenches. His players completed 14 of 21 one-on-one take-ons, and even more impressively they completed 23 of 30 tackles.
“The most important stat was to win the duel rate today and we won this,” Farke said. “This was the key topic in order to get this three points. We had several chances, especially in the second-half and even before the first goal. We showed a committed approach and were tactically disciplined and concentrated.”
