Daniel Farke refused to offer any excuses after Norwich City’s 2-0 defeat at Swansea on Friday night blew the Championship promotion race wide open.

The Canaries lead at the top was cut to two points after a third winless game in the league without scoring.

Andre Ayew and Conor Hourihane struck in each half for the Swans, after punishing mistakes from Tim Krul and Kenny McLean, with Norwich mustering only one shot on target.

Both second-placed Swansea and third-placed Brentford have matches in hand on Farke’s boys, who were unable to raise themselves for a third game in six days.

"I will allow my players to be disappointed for two days. As I am. It is important to win the next game. To get that winning feeling back," he said.

"I don’t have to analyse it too much. Two top Championship sides. We were a bit more on the front foot in the first half. But Swansea is so strong at defending and why they have the best record in the division. They are always dangerous out of counter attacks and set pieces. But I felt we controlled this aspect.

"Then from one set piece before half-time they are able to score. Let’s be honest, it was not even a chance but in these type of games you have to play without mistakes.

"Sadly it was a crucial key mistake and Ayew is able to punish you. The same in the second half. Twice we gave the ball away unnecessarily and invited them to counter and with Hourihane’s quality it was a top strike in the bottom corner.

"We tried to bring offensive players in but they are always good when they can concentrate on sitting deep. We had plenty of situations in and around the box but couldn’t find the key to open the door. In our first meeting, it was Swansea with a little mistake and we punished them. They have done it to us in this game.

“It is difficult to have a third game in six days, plus two difficult travel games for us. Not just being without Emi Buendia but without Jordan Hugill, without Marco Stiepermann. Our options on the bench for this game were (Adam) Idah, (Kieran) Dowell, (Onel) Hernandez, all out long term.

"You can’t just press a button and change the world. You need some time. We don’t search for excuses. In this moment it is about showing resilience and steel and grinding out results.”

Swans’ rival Steve Cooper is refusing to get carried away after guiding last season’s play-off contenders into the automatic promotion places.

“We are growing game by game, day by day. But this is a work in progress,” he said. “We are not going to get carried away. This is a good night. I would have liked a bit more of the ball, second half, but truth be told when you are 2-0 up against a good team you tend to concede a bit of ground.

“A really, really good win. You can’t put too much expectation on my lads because they were not there at the start of the season. With 19 games to go now I think it would be unfair to put any on them now. A lot of clubs not even in the top 10 at the moment have many more resources than us.

"But we’re going well, we are enjoying the journey and under me it will be one game at a time.”