Norwich City: David Wagner interview on performance levels

The Canaries have won three of their last four Championship games, helping relieve the pressure on their head coach after new sporting director Ben Knapper’s arrival at Carrow Road.

That includes last-gasp victories at in-form Cardiff and Bristol City, but fans have been left underwhelmed by the manner of victory, with Knapper targeting more control of games.

Wagner concurs with those observations, stating ahead of Preston North End’s Norfolk visit that there’s plenty of room for improvement in his side.

“For sure, we have to, we need and we know that we’d like to improve performance-wise,” he said. “But at the minute it’s a period where results count.

“I know, and I’ve said this always, you will have more positive results if you perform on a good level. This is where we have to be focused, make sure that defensively we continue to improve, be more stable, more solid, more difficult to break down.

“We have to make sure that we still create opportunities and be clinical. I think this is something which we’ve been more or less consistently over the whole season, able to score goals.”

That run of good results hasn’t been without its merits, however. The German highlighted defensive improvement in those fixtures, with Sunday’s win over the Robins especially pleasing in that department.

“Cardiff I think was a decent performance,” he continued. “The QPR game was okay; defensively good, offensively we can do better.

“At Bristol it was a very even and competitive game, and obviously if you score so late you have a little bit of luck.

“In the Watford game (which Norwich lost 3-2 having been 2-0 down), we had our old problems again, but in the other three games we looked much more solid and stable in these games.

“Against Bristol as well, considering the good run they’d had at home. They’ve just beaten Middlesbrough at home. I think this was a good step in the right direction.”