McLean admits City have not been good enough for ‘unforgiving’ Premier League

Kenny McLean insists the Norwich City players have given ‘everything’ they’ve got this season - but admits Daniel Farke’s squad have come up short of Premier League standards.

McLean has been a regular starter for the Canaries and the Scotland international’s fine cross very nearly brought a late equaliser against Brighton on Saturday, only for Adam Idah’s determined header to come back off the post.

Losing 1-0 leaves City on the verge of an immediate return to the Championship with five games remaining, starting on Tuesday night at Watford, who are also firmly in the relegation mix.

“It’s frustrating, but we gave everything,” McLean said of the defeat. “This league is so unforgiving, we gave everything and we came up short. Sometimes we’ve lacked that bit of quality throughout the season.

“Sometimes you give everything and don’t get the results, you can’t argue. We’ve found it tough this season, but we’ll continue to work as hard as we can.”

It was a fifth consecutive defeat in the league for City, despite the hosts having 58pc of possession and more shots on goal than the Seagulls.

“The performance was okay, but we’ve learned a lot this season that okay isn’t good enough in this league,” McLean continued. “It’s simple really, we’ve been punished a lot for not capitalising on some play that we do have.

“But it’s been a common theme where we find ourselves behind in games and struggle to get back into them - and that was the case again. We did okay, probably had more of the ball, we played a lot in their half, but we didn’t do enough to create enough chances to score goals.”

At the final whistle it was the Brighton players and staff roaring with delight and the Norwich players on the turf despondent, as their respective fates became clear. McLean admits that too often this season City have lost to teams also in the bottom half of the table.

Speaking to the Canaries’ official website, he added: “The teams around you are where you need to pick up points, we’ve not done that enough this season.

“We’ve gone into games with some optimism, games that we know we need to pick up points, we’ve not done it enough. We always find ourselves in disappointing situations and it’s been too common this season.”