Match Reports

country flag The Championship Round 28
Norwich City 3 - 1 Birmingham City
Fri 18 January 2019 19:45

Norwich City

...

...

Game Report

Highlights

Norwich went back to 2nd for a few hours at least thanks to a stunning first half display to see off Birmingham. They led 3-1 at the break, which was how it finished, after Teemu Pukki, Mario Vrancic and Tom Trybull all struck. Che Adams had initially levelled for Birmingham but they were second best and remain well adrift of the top six.

Detail

Norwich gave starts to Tom Trybull and Marco Stiepermann, the latter free of injury. There were no surprises in Birmingham's eleven with an unchanged side named.

Pukki made it 20 goals for the season for club and country when he opened the scoring just 13 minutes in as he converted from Jamal Lewis' cross.

Within a minute Birmingham were level as Adams made it 14 for the season with a classy finish from Jota's pass.

However the visitors were blown away by Norwich's ruthless attacking display. They usually reserve all their goals for late in a game but this was a stunning first half display that finished the game as a contest. They went back ahead on 22 minutes as Vrancic scored a stunner from distance. And three minutes later Trybull headed in from Emi Buendia's corner.

Buendia was forced off in the first half by injury but that was the only blot on the copybook for the Canaries.

Birmingham kept going in the second half and were unlucky that Craig Gardner's late curler just missed.

Summary

This was a well-needed win for Norwich and puts them back into a decent position in the table. They impressed with their attacking prowess in the first half. Birmingham were poor at the back in the first half but Garry Monk can at least be pleased they remained competitive in the second half.

Key

Key players
Regular players
Support players
Universal Player Grid
Red card
Yellow/red card
Yellow Card
Goal
Artificial Pitch