Norwich City beat Burnley 2-0 on Sunday to give themselves a fighting chance of escaping relegation from the Premier League.
Pierre Lees-Melou scored his first goal for the club, and Teemu Pukki’s late strike helped Norwich to a crucial win at Carrow Road.
A corner found its way to Lees-Melou, whose shot from the edge of the penalty area got a deflection from Josh Brownhill and soared in after touching the post in the ninth minute.
After latching on to Mathias Normann’s fantastic through ball that took Burnley’s defence completely off guard, Pukki rocketed into the far corner to increase the lead in the 86th minute.
Burnley’s Maxwel Cornet cut a low cross by Dwight McNeil wide from close range earlier, and Norwich squandered chances to put the game to bed, with Grant Hanley heading against the woodwork and Milot Rashica having a shot saved.
Norwich City’s first league win since January moved them to 21 points with seven games to go, following a 0-0 draw against Brighton & Hove Albion last weekend, giving manager Dean Smith hope that they may pull off a miracle and avoid relegation.
“It [the result] demonstrated that we are still fighting, which was crucial for our supporters. It instils a lot of confidence in our dressing room “an International sports website quoted Smith as saying.
“We had hoped for better results yesterday, but we can only focus on ourselves… when you win two or three games in a row, the world appears different.”
When Norwich travels to Manchester United for their next match, Smith expects more tenacious defending.
“It’s a difficult area to visit and achieve a result. With Aston Villa, I got a win, so perhaps I can complete the double.”
Sean Dyche’s side fell to 18th place with 24 points from 30 games, four points behind Everton and nine behind Leeds United, who also triumphed on Saturday to improve their survival aspirations.
“We’ve won games that were written off,” Brownhill stated, referring to his side’s next match against West Ham United.
“This isn’t the first time we’ve been here. We’re a fighting team, but we haven’t been able to come out on top in the end.”
