Defender wants City to prove they can play ‘ugly’ football against Everton
Timm Klose started his first league game since January 2019 as Norwich City lost 3-0 to Southampton at Carrow Road Picture: Paul Chesterton/Focus Images - Credit: Paul Chesterton/Focus Images Ltd
Timm Klose thinks Norwich City need to abandon ambitions of playing “pretty” football if they’re to have any chance of clambering away from the Premier League trapdoor.
The Switzerland international made his first appearance in almost 10 months after a knee injury and wore the captain’s armband as the Canaries imploded against Southampton on Friday night, resuming their campaign with a damaging 3-0 defeat.
Daniel Farke’s team now have eight games to get the 15 points they are likely to need to pull off an improbable great escape, starting at home to Everton on Wednesday evening.
“We have such a young squad, we have to analyse the situation and why we are in a situation like this,” said a despondent Klose. “We have to do better and the most important thing is for everyone to look at themselves rather than pointing fingers.
“For me that’s the most important thing, to learn and to be better, to get out of a situation like that with a win. Sometimes you don’t need to win pretty, you have to win ugly and hopefully we can do that in the next eight games and get as many points as possible, to stay in the league.
“I know it’s possible, I know how difficult it is but we have to show that we believe against Everton.”
MORE: Klose admits City struggled to fight back against Saints with no fans to roar them on
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The 32-year-old joined City in the Premier League in January 2016 from Wolfsburg in a deal reportedly worth around £7.5million, only for a knee injury in April of that season to prove damaging as Alex Neil’s team were relegated.
This time he returns for the final phase after seeing centre-back colleagues Grant Hanley and Christoph Zimmermann struck down by injuries, returning to action during a busy six weeks of top-flight action.
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“I’ve been out for 10 months, it’s not like I’m used to this any more but I’ve worked so hard on my fitness and worked so hard on my body to be in perfect shape, in case of a situation like this,” he explained.
“Now we’re in this situation and I would have wished to have got a more relaxed ease in to the situation, but I’m very happy to be out there again and I’m willing to play every game. I want to win every game, unfortunately we couldn’t deliver that, but we take a couple of days to analyse and recover, then we go again.”
