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Godfrey hails a different Norwich City with ‘someone to get their nut on it’ after Millwall win
An emotional Christoph Zimmermann embraces Marco Stiepermann, as Norwich City return to the top of the Sky Bet Championship with victory at Millwall. Picture: Paul Chesterton/Focus Images - Credit: Paul Chesterton/Focus Images Ltd
Ben Godfrey was proud Norwich City proved they are far from a one-trick pony with their superb 3-1 win at energetic Millwall.
Teemu Pukki and Ben Godfrey (right) celebrate Norwich City's crucial second goal at Millwall, scored by Christoph Zimmermann. Picture: Paul Chesterton/Focus Images - Credit: Paul Chesterton/Focus Images Ltd
A delightfully simple Christoph Zimmermann header from Emi Buendia’s corner restored the Canaries’ lead in the second half – a goal more akin to Millwall’s style, yet one crucial to City’s sixth win in eight games, as they returned to the Championship summit at Leeds’ expense.
And it underlined Daniel Farke’s squad are about more than simply pretty football and good fitness.
“You’ve got stand up to these tasks and enjoy doing it as well,” said Godfrey. “You’ve got to be aware that this is what you are going to face.
“So achieving what we have here, you are proud of yourself and the boys standing up to it because many teams would have crumbled. So it is a big achievement and hard work out there.
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“This is the Championship. It’s not always going to be pretty and if you can’t do both sides of it, then you are going to find yourselves losing games. So that’s what you’ve got to do – earn the right to play and when we get the opportunity to play, you’ve got to make the most of it and be brave. I think we did that.”
MORE: Millwall 1-3 Norwich City – How the Championship clash unfolded
Zimmermann’s first league goal of the season was perfectly timed, 69 minutes into the contest at The Den and the ideal precursor to Teemu Pukki’s 24th strike of the campaign 10 minutes later – a more customary flowing counter attack to seal the deal.
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“They’ve got big guys but we’ve got Zimbo who’s about 9ft3 and he’s a danger in their box as well,” smiled Godfrey.
“It’s nice for us to score like that, to be fair, because I think people have seen us score nice goals that we’ve worked from one end of the pitch to the other. So to put it in the box and someone to get their nut on it is a nice change as well.
“You come to different places like these in the Championship so you’ve got to be able to switch up, and it just shows the squad that we have is capable of doing that, which is massively important.”
The 21-year-old acknowledged he had also been in the wars at The Den.
Godfrey added: “It’s what you expect when you come to these places – it’s going to be in your face, a lot of headers to be won so to come away with just a little scratch on my eyebrow to be fair, I’m happy with that. It hasn’t spoilt my looks and we’ve got three points.
“We knew what was coming and we showed our maturity. We stood up to what they had and came away with the win, which is massive.
“When you are playing against teams who are not where they want to be, they will be up for the fight and will be in your face, horrible to play against – so we have got to enjoy doing it, because you know this is not going to be the last time we face a team like this.
“We’ve got to enjoy doing it and do it well, which I thought we did here. So on to the next and hopefully we can do a good job then as well.”
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