Norwich City vs Blackburn Rovers. Sky Bet Championship.
Carrow RoadAttendance25,866.
Report and free match highlights from the Sky Bet Championship clash between Norwich City and Blackburn Rovers at Carrow Road as an own goal from Ben Gibson and a late strike from Tyrhys Dolan saw Jon Dahl Tomasson's men move back up to third
Saturday 17 December 2022 20:19, UK
Norwich were booed off the pitch after a 2-0 defeat against promotion rivals Blackburn at Carrow Road on Saturday night.
Ben Gibson's own goal (4) and a late strike from Tyrhys Dolan (86) secured just a second win in five matches for Rovers, who beat the Canaries away from home for the first time since August 1999.
The home fans made their feelings known during the match and, more intensely, after the final whistle, with criticism of head coach Dean Smith's style of play, as well as calls from a minority for him to leave the club.
Norwich - who racked up 19 shots throughout the game - drop to fifth in the Championship table as a result of their eighth defeat of the season, with Blackburn leapfrogging Watford back into third, four points behind second-placed Sheffield United.
Blackburn arrived at Carrow Road keen to avenge last week's 4-1 derby defeat to Preston, which left them with three defeats from their last four and quickly losing sight of Burnley and Sheffield United in the automatic promotion places.
Within five minutes, they had made the dream start. Tyler Morton floated a free-kick in Sam Gallagher's direction, and though the striker could not fashion a shot of his own, the ball struck Gibson and flew into the bottom right corner.
Norwich were rocked by conceding so early and took time to get into a rhythm, persisting with a patient approach, as opposed to going all guns blazing, in search of an equaliser, which triggered audible frustration from the frustrated home crowd.
The sights of goal came a little more frequently thereafter, but Blackburn's defence stood up to the task set of them; Daniel Ayala blocked a powerful shot from Isaac Hayden, who later saw a relatively tame header saved. Rovers held on to the lead at the break, however, despite generating an expected goals total of just 0.03.
Norwich continued to probe throughout the second half, as their sizeable number of shots illustrated, but any openings were swiftly snuffed out, with gaps plugged as and when they emerged.
And so Blackburn struck to take the game away from their reach once and for all, as Dolan received the ball on the right-hand side and squeezed in a second via a slight deflection off Sam McCallum.
There was one late chance for the hosts to pull one back when Josh Sargent directed a header onto the underside of the bar from close range, but Thomas Kaminski stayed alert to claw the ball away off the line.
Norwich's Dean Smith: "We didn't create big enough chances with the amount of the ball we had. I've not seen the stats yet, but I'm sure we'll have had the lion's share of the possession and we gave two sloppy goals away. We were a little bit slow on the ball and we never beat the press enough. I'm disapointed and frustrated.
"A win today would have put us in third place. We got a really good win against Swansea last week and we wanted to follow that up today in front of our fans, but unfortunately we didn't.
"I understand frustration and disappointment, but leave it until the end of the game, because otherwise it will just play havoc on players' minds as well. There's a lot of players out there that have won the title twice for this club and they probably don't deserve some of the stick they got at times today. I've always said, after the game, you channel your frustrations and we have to accept that."
Blackburn's Jon Dahl Tomasson: "It's been a fantastic night. A brilliant result, a top performance. We asked for a reaction after last week's result and I must admit the players gave a brilliant reaction with the way they played the game plan. There were some great pressing moments, some great moments on the ball
"Norwich are a Premier League side, a big team, but the players showed a lot of character and it was great to give our fans a victory again."
Both teams are back in action at 3pm on Boxing Day. Norwich travel to Kenilworth Road to take on Luton at 7.45pm, while Blackburn face Sunderland at the Stadium of Light earlier in the day at 12.30pm.
Those matches will be available to watch live on Sky Sports Football.
