A second-half goal from the substitute Conor Hourihane was enough to decide the contest, bring an end to a run of five matches without a win and edge Villa to within one actual point of safety. For Norwich this defeat left them bottom, amid a now familiar tale of decent chances not taken.
Norwich played good football between the boxes, hit the bar, had two efforts cleared off the line and forced a wonderful stop from Tom Heaton at the last. Villa may have been more prosaic but showed admirable guts to keep competing in front of a restive crowd. And Dean Smith’s decision to bring on Hourihane, eight minutes before he scored, proved to be the game’s decisive moment.
“Getting three points is the big thing,” Smith said afterwards. “With our recent run of results and performance I asked for three things: attitude, application and enthusiasm. My players gave me that and showed a lot of character as well. We weren’t at our best by any means, but it can be a massive result for us.”
Smith said Hourihane’s introduction had been a defensive move, with the aim to shore up possession in midfield. “I just felt Marvelous Nakamba had given the ball away a few times and knew Conor could protect it. But he also did what he does best, which is scoring goals.”
The goal came from one of Villa’s best moves, an exchange of passes between Anwar El Ghazi and Jack Grealish initially creating space on the left. The Villa captain, who gave an excellent, authoritative performance, used the opportunity to make his way into the box. He sent Alex Tettey to the floor with a drop of the shoulder before picking out Hourihane. The Irishman needed no second invitation and calmly swept the ball inside the far post.
Daniel Farke was furious as the goal went in. The Norwich head coach was convinced that the goal was made possible by a bad decision by the assistant referee some 30 seconds earlier, when a Norwich throw-in was awarded to Villa. The German said he did not want to talk about the incident, perhaps wary that it might be seen as sour grapes, but he still went on at length.
“The only moment we were not switched on was after a clear and obvious mistake from the referee,” Farke said. “I think the situation was clear, Perhaps the only people who thought it the other way was the referee and the assistant.”
Farke’s appeals during the match were surely an attempt to get VAR involved but they were ignored. He also bemoaned an absence of penalty‑box quality as fine lines again proved decisive. Sam Byram hit the bar with a header in the first half and, in the second, Douglas Luiz made a brilliant goalline clearance from Tettey before Heaton’s save from the substitute Onel Hernández was even better. But the sense that Norwich were about to score never really hung in the air.
City host Spurs on Saturday while Villa travel to Watford for another relegation match-up. “This was a tough match between two struggling sides,” Smith said. “Everything you get in this division you have to earn.”
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