Przemek Placheta was proud to have opened his Norwich City account with an important equaliser but the speed demon was still annoyed by an earlier miss.
The 22-year-old winger replaced the injured Kieran Dowell in just the 24th minute of Saturday’s home Championship clash with Preston.
He had missed an open goal in the 67th minute, after an Adam Idah shot was parried with City trailing 2-1, but made up for it in the 85th minute with a sweetly struck equaliser from inside the box after his first attempt had rebounded to him.
“In the second half we had to score some goals because we had many chances to do this,” said the Poland Under-21 international.
“It was a nice feeling to score my first goal during my first game in the stadium but I had a chance before, like the same chance I scored, so I have to work harder on scoring.”
Placheta also very nearly set up a winner deep into injury-time, after his determined run and cross was turned goalwards by Teemu Pukki, only for North End keeper Declan Rudd to pull off a fine save.
“It was a good chance,” he added. “We had a few chances to score and maybe we could have won, but we didn’t and we have to keep moving forward.”
The summer signing was able to enjoy the roar of a small home crowd, with 1,000 supporters at Carrow Road as part of a trial game as football tries to regain some normality amid the recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic.
“It was just 1,000 but for us the feeling is better to play with fans,” said Placheta, who is still learning to speak English. “So hopefully at the next game we will have more fans.”
The Pole - who can speak German, like plenty of City’s players and coaches - joined from Slask Wroclaw and was given a good example of the stubborn tests which await in the Championship this season.
“It was my dream to join an English team like Norwich. It’s a new competition and a new challenge for me,” Placheta continued.
“I have to learn to prepare as fast as possible, to play my best.
“In all things you can feel are different from when I played in Poland, so I have to learn this league, to play my best.”
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