Sitting comfortably dead last in the Premier League, Norwich City had their work cut out for them visiting eight placed Wolves in the Sunday afternoon matchup.
Wolves had entertained Molineux Stadium only three days earlier by beating Espanyol in the Europa League 4-0, with Portuguese striker Diogo Jota in superb form, banging in a hat-trick to sink the Spanish visitors.
Diogo Jota took control early on the game against Norwich as well, as the visitors’ defense couldn’t handle the red-hot-striker. Jota scored two goals in space of 11 minutes in the first half and was heavily involved in the finalizing 3-0 goal as well. Norwich had not much say in the final result, despite getting possession of the ball for most of the game.
It was another disappointing night for Norwich and the manager Daniel Farke. The visiting team saw their defensive game plan go undone by Wolves sharp passing and stretching runs behind the defensive line. The first goal by Diogo Jota was scored after a fantastic spin-o-rama move, which left defenders and goalkeeper Tim Krul baffled. There were some protest for handball before the goal, but VAR ruled it all good.
Jota’s second goal came after Norwich defense fell asleep in the aftermath of a corner kick, which fell straight to the feet of Romain Saiss, who then hit the ball in front of the goal where poaching Jota arrived on 11th hour. Claims for offside were correctly waved off and Wolves were 2-0 up on 30th minute.
Norwich couldn’t start their chase as Wolves were defending vigorously and left the visitors no room to maneuver. Altogether Norwich managed four shots on goal, but none caused Rui Patricio between the Wolves’ pipes any problems. Early in the second half Wolves finalized the game and stopped Norwich’s wriggling. Diogo Jota smashed the ball into the post and Raul Jimenez collected the rebound to make it 3-0 on the 50th minute. Norwich’s substitutions didn’t have much effect and Wolves strolled to an easy win with not much trouble.
Norwich is now seven points from safety with 11 games remaining. They’ve only collected 18 points from their 27 games and the last win dates back to 18th of January. Daniel Farke needs to find a philosophers stone to start winning and turn his team’s season around. The journey isn’t getting any easier as Norwich will host 3rd placed Leicester on Friday the 28th February.
