Todd Cantwell insists his classy partnership with Emi Buendia must be a ‘frightening sight’ for Norwich City’s Championship rivals.

The duo proved too hot for Cardiff in a 2-0 win that moved the Canaries five points clear at the top, ahead of the Boxing Day trip to Watford.

Fit-again Cantwell marked his first start since October 27 with a thumping strike after collecting the Argentine’s pass. Buendia had opened the scoring in the first half at Carrow Road with his sixth goal of the campaign.

“I love playing with Emi, he sees the same passes that I like to see, we have a pretty similar idea of what we want to do,” said Cantwell.

“At moments, when Emi is playing like he is, it brings everybody’s level up as well.

“So I think me and him linking up together is a frightening sight, to be fair.

“I felt like we could have been 5-0 or 6-0 up. You’re always worried when it’s 1-0, you’ve had so many chances, but getting the second goal cemented the win for us.”

The Hornets will have a new head coach in charge after Xisco Muñoz was unveiled over the weekend. Daniel Farke’s table toppers have a nine point cushion to their hosts, but Cantwell wants no let up.

“It’s a really big game. If we can go and take some points from that game it we’ll take a massive amount of confidence,” he said.

“We’re obviously doing very well and picking up a lot of victories at the moment. The victories are creeping the points up compared to if we were getting draws.

“But you could argue some of the points we’ve picked up, you would have taken a point at Blackburn and teams like Cardiff are difficult to play against.

“It’s exciting (being top) but things can change so quickly in football and we have to be very careful.

“I remember saying it the year we went up, it’s the next game that’s important, you can’t get too carried away or too far ahead. You go on a run and everything changes, nothing’s done yet. I think we went through a really tough period, with all the injuries we had. Obviously we’ve still got a pretty big list of injuries now.

“The lads now that are playing, playing well and getting the wins, deserve a lot of credit, because we’re a massive squad and we knew this season that we would need them because the games come so thick and fast.”