‘They are a tough nut to crack’ - Howe insists plucky City are no soft touches

Daniel Farke's depleted squad had failed to pick up a point on the road or a clean sheet this season, prior to heading to the south-coast, but proved obdurate opponents.

City also had to cope with the second half injury exit of Ben Godfrey which forced the Canaries to play the final 40 minutes with a makeshift centre back pairing of Alex Tettey and Ibrahim Amadou.

"People will see we're playing Norwich at home and the expectations are for it to be a home win," said Howe. "I understand that and that's certainly our expectations as well.

"But these games are never that easy and we fully respect Norwich, their manager, their players and the way they play. They are a tough nut to crack and they were for us.

"Norwich were always going to come into the game. They are a good counter-attacking team and have very good technical players so they were always going to have their moments.

"Aaron Ramsdale made one big save and, apart from that, he didn't have too much to do. The disappointing thing is that their goalkeeper wasn't overly worked and, with the quality we had on the pitch, that was the disappointment."

Howe was unhappy at his side's lack of precision after a bright start.

"We're much better when we're a little more intricate and a little more patient so our desperation to score worked against us," he said. "We started the game well and I was pleased with the first 15 to 20 minutes.

"I thought we played some really good football and looked like we had a good mentality to the game but it didn't really get any better than that.

"We sort of faded away and stopped doing the things that had brought us that early dominance and then became quite desperate to score.

"In our desperation to score, we put a lot of aerial crosses into the box, which never really suits us.

"Sometimes, you have to have the bigger picture in the back of your mind. It wasn't the three points we wanted but it wasn't a defeat."