Daniel Farke felt Norwich City scaled new heights in a battling 2-1 win at Reading, which stretched their unbeaten run to seven matches in all competitions.

James Maddison’s stunning first half free kick and Cameron Jerome’s first Championship goal of the season clinched the points to propel the Canaries into the latest international break in fine fettle.

“A brilliant win. One of the toughest places you can go in this league,” said Farke. “To have a win at Reading is brilliant. All in all it was a high quality game from both teams. Especially the first half was so close together. Both were controlling the ball and strong in defence. In general, we deserved to win. We had the better chances, we were a little bit more concentrated in defending.

“So many topics. We faced a really aggressive and highly-motivated opponent. But we were brilliant in our defending, in counter actions, in possession. We had to fight against setbacks and accept some hard decisions during the whole game. We stood together until the last second. To be honest I felt unlike at Middlesbrough I got the feeling in the last 20 minutes we were in control and not really under pressure.

“We were so good in possession but of course in the last five minutes you have to defend the high balls. We did and for that just compliments for the lads.”

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City’s clean sheet record went in the first half when Liam Moore headed past Angus Gunn but Farke was unhappy at events leading up to the concession.

“It is not so much about statistics,” he said. “But it was 100pc a throw in for us. The referee decided in the other direction. Then they took the throw 15 metres away from where it went out. That was hard to accept and then a really doubtful free kick. It was hard to accept three decisions in a row. We don’t have to speak about the set piece. We can defend it better but the reaction from the lads was brilliant. We didn’t lose our confidence.”