Norwich City vs Sunderland. Sky Bet Championship.
Carrow RoadAttendance26,668.
Report and free match highlights from the Sky Bet Championship match between Norwich City and Sunderland at Carrow Road on Saturday | Josh Sargent seals a narrow win for Canaries as they close on play-off places.
Saturday 2 March 2024 18:37, UK
Josh Sargent scored for the seventh successive home game as Norwich maintained their Championship play-off challenge with a hard-fought 1-0 win over Sunderland.
The USA international struck in the 81st minute as the Canaries finally found a way past a stubborn visiting defence to make it five victories on the trot at Carrow Road.
While Norwich can look forward to an exciting end the campaign, it looks like being a different story for the visitors, with a fourth consecutive defeat leaving them nine points adrift of the top six.
After a cagey start Norwich went close to taking the lead on 15 minutes when Sargent's first-time drive was deflected just wide by Jenson Seelt.
It then took a superb finger-tip save from Anthony Patterson to thwart Borja Sainz after the Spaniard had latched on to a loose ball when a corner was only half cleared.
These were rare moments of alarm for Sunderland, however, with both sides tending to cancel each other out in a tight opening period.
Pierre Ekwah had two long-range efforts for the visitors, one comfortably saved and the other sailing well wide, and those proved to be their only shots of the half.
Norwich started the second period on the front foot, with Jack Stacey's right-wing cross almost catching Patterson out and coming back off the crossbar.
The keeper then pushed away a Gabriel Sara shot which was heading for the bottom corner before making a good stop to keep out a fizzing low effort from Sainz.
Substitute Abdoullah Ba cut into the box and struck the woodwork from a tight angle in a rare Sunderland raid but it was the hosts who deservedly broke the deadlock with nine minutes left.
The visitors failed to deal with Ben Gibson's cross from the right and Sargent won the battle for the ball before lashing it home from close range.
Norwich's David Wagner:
"When Kenny McLean woke up on Thursday he was struggling to walk and he was not able to train on Thursday or Friday.
"He had stiffness in the back and full credit to him and our medical staff that he was able to play. He is a top, top professional who does everything he can to be successful, a proper Scottish braveheart!
"Josh also turned in top performance, not just with the goal but the way he linked play and worked hard to close them down."
Sunderland's Mike Dodds:
"I look back to this time last season when I think we were in a very similar position to where we find ourselves now.
"Then we went on an unbelievable run to take it to the final game of the season and there's no reason why we can't do that again.
"I look at the players and I don't see a group that are giving up on it. They are a group who are really close to turning it around and sooner or later I believe the tide will turn.
"We have now got two matches coming up against two of the best teams in the league and we are really looking forward to it."
