City manager Alex Neil told the waiting media his team was “punished” for his team’s contribution to the game in the first half as Norwich fell to a 3-0 defeat to a Manchester City side who eased into the fourth round of the FA Cup.
Neil made seven changes to the team, which beat Southampton last weekend, with John Ruddy back in goal for the Canaries since November 29 and Cameron Jerome leading up front being just two of the changes.
The bench also featured the likes of Kyle Lafferty who replaced Sebastian Bassong in the 72nd minute and Tony Andreu returning to City’s matchday squad after a loan spell at Rotherham, which saw the French midfielder pick up two goals in 11 appearances.
Speaking to the Eastern Daily Press after the game, Alex Neil said his team must forget the game and concentrate solely on reaching their aims of a second season in the top flight:
If I am being honest, we will forget this game as of now because our bread and butter is the Premier League.
In terms of the result, Manchester City deserved to win the game. I was really disappointed with our retention of the ball in the first half and the silly decisions we made, poor passes and touches let us down.As good as the finish is [for the first goal], (Sergio) Aguero has skipped past two and three of my players. We have got to make sure we stop that and we didn’t do well.
Speaking to BBC Sport, Neil reiterated his feelings towards his team’s performance:
In the first half, we didn’t retain the ball well enough and good teams will punish you. We played better in the second half but the damage had already been done.
Norwich City are on the road for their next two games, with City visitors of the Britannia Stadium against Stoke on Wednesday before travelling down to the South coast to face fellow Premier League newcomers, Bournemouth, and Alex Neil told Norwich City TV the fresh legs of his team will see City pick up points on the road.
We’ll be brushing it off. I told the players after the game ‘that one is done now’. We should have done better in the game but we didn’t, and now we need to focus on Wednesday and Saturday.
We’ve got two crucial games coming up, and we’ll have a lot of guys who are fresh.
