Johannes Hoff Thorup impressed with Norwich’s ‘fight’ after draw with Boro

Norwich head coach Johannes Hoff Thorup praised his side’s battling qualities after seeing them recover from two goals down to take a point in a 3-3 draw with Middlesbrough.

But he acknowledged there was work to do at the other end of the pitch as he picked through the bones of a pulsating encounter at Carrow Road.

“In the past two games I have been so impressed with the fight the lads have shown,” said Thorup, whose side also recovered from a two-goal deficit to draw at Preston in midweek.

“In each case it was, ‘How can we get a result here?’ rather than the players blaming each other for what went wrong in the first half.

“You can talk about tactics all you like but they mean nothing if your players don’t show heart, passion and team spirit when things are
going wrong. That sort of attitude can only be good for us going forward.

“But today I thought we struggled a bit defensively and were opened up too easily.

“For a period of 20 minutes or so in the first half we switched off in too many situations and were too passive.

“We need to be more solid at the back and that’s down to me to prepare the players better.”

The Canaries took an eighth-minute lead through a Borja Sainz’s long-range piledriver, only to find themselves 3-1 down at the break.

Boro took just three minutes to level through Tommy Conway before scoring twice at the end of the first period – through Conway again and then Finn Azaz – to seemingly take control.

Conway should have put the game to bed from the penalty spot on 68 minutes but had his effort saved by George Long.

The hosts then pulled one back through Sainz before fortuitously getting back on level terms in the 79th minute equaliser when visiting goalkeeper Seny Dieng managed to claw the ball away from Kellen Fisher’s inswinging cross only to inadvertently flick it back into his own net.

The drama was not over, with Norwich skipper Kenny McLean sent off for a high tackle on Hayden Hackney – but the hosts saw out the final 10 minutes.

Middlesbrough manager Michael Carrick was pleased with his side’s performance despite having not got the win.

“I feel really proud of the lads, even though we are obviously all disappointed with the way it ended,” he said.

“I think Norwich are now unbeaten here for a year (24 games) so we were playing against a really good team and caused them a lot of problems.

“We missed a penalty and they put two in from 25 yards – that sort of thing can happen in football sometimes but overall I was delighted with the way we played. There’s so much the lads can take from this.

“We have just played two top sides in the space of a few days (they beat Sheffield United 1-0 in midweek) and are really disappointed not to have come away with six points.

“As a team we looked well balanced, played really good football at times and were rewarded with three goals, but you can’t really legislate for the kind of goals Norwich scored.

“To come to a tough place like this and be really disappointed to only take a point shows how far we have come.”