Norwich City vs Rotherham United. Sky Bet Championship.
Carrow RoadAttendance26,269.
Report and free match highlights from the Sky Bet Championship match between Norwich City and Rotherham at Carrow Road as the Canaries missed out on the chance to move into the top six as they were held to a goalless draw.
Monday 10 April 2023 18:27, UK
Norwich missed an excellent opportunity to move into the Championship play-off places when they were held to a frustrating goalless draw by Rotherham.
With Blackburn drawing at Huddersfield earlier in the day, the Canaries would have climbed into the top six with a win at Carrow Road.
But despite dominating the match for long periods they could find no way through a determined rearguard, with the visitors picking up another useful point in their battle against the drop.
Buoyed by their excellent 2-0 win at Blackburn on Good Friday, Norwich completely dominated the opening stages, with Josh Vickers making two excellent stops in the first five minutes to deny first Gabriel Sara and then Josh Sargent.
The pressure on the Rotherham goal was incessant and Teemu Pukki wasted a good chance to open the scoring when he dwelt on the ball too long after being put clear by a ball from deep, allowing Cohen Bramall to intercept.
Pukki, who recently announced he would be leaving the Canaries at the end of season, then fired inches over and Sam McCallum's piledriver was deflected just wide as the one-sided nature of proceedings continued throughout the first half.
The Millers rarely threatened, although they fluffed a decent opportunity midway through the half when Tariq Fosu mis-kicked after being picked out in space by Jamie Lindsay.
It was a similar story after the interval, with Norwich on the front foot and their opponents largely content to sit back and soak up the pressure.
The visitors had another close shave on 54 minutes when Onel Hernandez twisted and turned in the box before getting in a shot that took a deflection and was going in until Tyler Blackett hooked the ball off the line.
Vickers then did well to tip away a curling effort from Marquinhos before Pukki steered the ball agonisingly wide as a Sara corner was allowed to run across the face of goal.
Conor Coventry's deflected shot in the 87th minute, which was comfortably gathered by Angus Gunn, was the best Rotherham could muster in an attacking mode, while Norwich almost snatched all three points in injury time.
When Vickers missed Sara's inswinging corner substitute Christos Tzolis had a clear sight of goal but Wes Harding was on the line to keep his effort out.
Norwich's David Wagner:
"It is important for me to judge the performance as well as the result. Obviously this was a frustrating result but I was delighted with the way we played. If we had taken one of our early chances I think it would have been a very different game.
"For the first 20-25 minutes I really don't think we could have played much better. We created a lot of good chances throughout the game but for a number of reasons - good defending, not staying calm and rushing it - we did not take them. We have had two good performances in a row now (after Friday's 2-0 win at Blackburn) and we need to keep our heads and be ready for the next challenge."
Rotherham's Matt Taylor:
"It has been a good Easter for us, there's no doubt about that. If you had told me before that we would take four points out of six against West Brom and Norwich I would certainly have taken that. Both of those clubs have a lot of good players and we can't match them in that department but we can match them in others and that's what you saw again today.
"We had to defend well and make some last-ditch tackles and blocks but you expect that against a team like Norwich. We dealt with their pressure very well even though we didn't threaten much going forward. It's good to have 45 points with six games to go but now it's all about what comes next. We have got to build on these two results, even though the injuries are making it tough for us."
