Daniel Farke warned his Norwich City players there would be setbacks during their promotion chase – and is backing his team to have the mental strength to win at Wigan tomorrow.

The Canaries had one foot in the Premier League in midweek, before a late equaliser from Reading rained on the Carrow Road parade, denying City a ninth win on the spin.

Farke’s team remain in a wonderful position though, seven points clear of third-placed Sheffield United with five games left before facing the battling Latics.

“My players are always focused but they are also realistic,” the Canaries’ chief said. “They are old enough and even the younger players know how football works sometimes. It’s not like you can paint a picture and everything is brilliant.

“All the opponents are losing points and you are winning every game and everything is easy. They know that each and every game is unbelievably complicated on this level, and especially against sides who are fighting for their lives to win points against relegation.

“So my feeling is we are totally down to earth and absolutely focused and switched on. Of course they were a bit disappointed after the game but this is also healthy. If you are not disappointed after such an ending of a game, there would be something wrong.

“But also after analysing and speaking about this, everything is okay and we know that we have to be really focused and go further on. We are still in a brilliant position and we will stay really greedy in order to win matches.”

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Sheffield United host relegation-threatened Millwall at 3pm today, before Leeds entertain local rivals Sheffield Wednesday at 5.30pm, and Farke is happy for his players to watch the action if they want to.

“We are completely relaxed, we don’t ban anything, the promotion word or anything,” he added. “We are not stupid, we know we are in a brilliant position and we can’t finish worse than third.

“So it’s not like we are just addicted to the table and thinking about what the other opponents are doing. These are things we can’t influence and we are just concentrating on the things we can influence. Our mantra is really to let the table take care of itself. We want to attack every game and we want to win matches.”