‘A massive game coming up’ – Krul well aware of how important Watford clash is to City’s prospects

Tim Krul knows there is no point denying the importance of Friday’s game against Watford for Norwich City, admitting the battle of the Premier League’s bottom two is a “massive game”.

The Canaries are three points adrift of safety after a 2-0 loss at Brighton on Saturday and the Hornets two points further back after a narrow 2-1 home defeat to Chelsea, still without a win this season.

"We need to believe in our philosophy," City keeper Krul said. "The manager is giving us everything we need to perform but we need to do it on the pitch and we haven't at the moment.

"So we have to look in the mirror, every one of us, a massive game coming up at home. That's a fixture you look at, at the start of the season, as one you need to get a result from.

"We all know how important Friday night is going to be and we'll work hard every day leading up to the game."

Krul again made a series of impressive saves for the Canaries but Brighton were too strong, deservedly winning after having 21 attempts at goal, seven of which were on target - compared to seven off-target shots for the visitors, who saw Marco Stiepermann hit the bar in the first half.

"The better team won, unfortunately," the Dutchman admitted. "They had a lot of chances. Unfortunately the chance of Stiepi hitting the crossbar, I think that was a turning point for us and that's the luck we need at the moment.

"We're not creating too many chances so when they come we need to capitalise on that, but in the end I think the pressure they put on us killed us in the end.

"The bodies were on the line, we were putting tackles in and that should be the signal that we had got away with it in the first half with a few chances, we need to kick on.

"It didn't happen, we couldn't get into second gear, I don't think."

The frustration was obvious among the Norwich team, with several heated exchanges among team-mates during and after a fifth defeat in six games.

Krul, 31, is seen as one of the leaders in the squad but feels more of that leadership is needed.

"It's everyone, we can't keep going back to young or old, there are 25 players in the squad who need to pull their weight," he added, speaking to City's official website.

"Listen, we've got some talent in this group, we just need to be a little bit harder and a bit more ruthless, like we did against Bournemouth (drawing 0-0) - on another day we could have won that.

"We need to keep believing and not let heads go down too much."

With worries about the Canaries' players ability to compete at Premier League level growing by the week, after limited changes to the squad following promotion, Krul is desperate to reward fans who are keeping the faith after a difficult opening 11 games.

"They've been behind us already, I know we keep asking that, but we need to give them something to shout about," he concluded. "Today they turned out in their thousands again, so big appreciation to the fans for sure.

"We need now to step it up because we've had our warning shots and now we need to really kick in."