Daniel Farke may be new to English football but he needs no crash course in the desire for a cup run amongst Norwich City’s support.
The Canaries have only reached the last eight of the League Cup once since 1996 and Farke is pledging to do everything in his power to get past Swindon Town tonight at Carrow Road.
“We won’t use this cup for taking risks or experiments. We want to win and go as far as we can,” he said. “I don’t give any presents away. In Germany there is only one cup and it is quite important with a lot of priority. Sometimes even the German managers attach more importance to the cup than the league.
“Here we have the FA Cup and the League Cup and I understand the fans put a high importance on this.
“It is always about finding the right balance, when you play three games in seven days. For me, even if it’s a league or a cup game it is always the same. I want to win in every competition. They all have a high priority for me. It is important, especially at the start of the season, the team find their rhythm. I don’t believe in too many changes between games. There will be some because we had just two days between a tough, hard game at Fulham, but without losing our focus or balance.”
Farke’s Championship quest began with a stirring late fightback at Craven Cottage, but the German was quick to identify areas for improvement.
“When I look back we had more possession than Fulham. We are the first team in the last year to have more possession than them in their stadium,” he said. “We had more shots on the goal, more shots in general. It was also important to defend well, to create chances to exhaust the opponent with our possession. You are only 100pc happy with a win but with so many new lads and other players injured I am really content.
“In the first minutes we had some problems controlling the ball and possession. We were nervous. Without the ball, in our pressing, we were compact but not as good as we could have been, which was going to be difficult against a good team like Fulham. You have to be perfect. Our pressing was not all together as one, we left some space, so we can improve. We changed to 4-1-4-1 to match them up and calm their possession. In 3-5-2 you have to press very high.”
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