Norwich City midfielder Andrew Surman is confident the Canaries can withstand the intensity of a Championship promotion run-in.

Paul Lambert’s men put daylight between themselves and the play-off contenders after another Carrow Road late show against Bristol City. It means Norwich travel to Hull City this weekend with a slender three point cushion to third-placed Swansea, but Surman is convinced the Canaries can repel the chasing pack.

He said: “When I joined at the start of the season I felt I was part of something special on the back of a promotion. I knew I was joining a club on the crest of a wave and we have carried that on.

“There is a great winning mentality – not just amongst the squad but the fans and the manager, and if we can keep that going we are in with a shout.

“We played well (against Bristol City) and I don’t think you could sense any pressure.

“The early goal helped because teams will always try and come to frustrate us and stop us playing, which is why we probably score so many late goals because we have to be patient.

“The penalty probably helped us to settle the nerves but we dominated and it would have been a travesty not to get the win.”

Surman believes the key to success over a tense final� is to focus solely on keeping City’s own house.

He said: “If we don’t win our games and keep that mentality it doesn’t matter what other teams do because we won’t go anywhere.

“It was a massive result (against Bristol City on Monday) because the way the other results went for us we knew we had a great chance to go second.

“But having said that you still have to be good enough to go out and get the win. It’s hard not to look at the other results and see what other teams are doing because you just want to concentrate on what you can control and win games yourself – but teams dropping points does give us an opportunity and we knew we had to take it.

“It’s a great achievement to build on getting promotion last season just to be in this position, but we know we have done nothing yet.

“We are three points clear with nine games left but we have to keep on top of our games. QPR are still ahead of us and we have to look to try and reel them in.”

Surman sealed Norwich’s latest league win with his first senior goal for the club, following an injury-plagued season since his summer switch from Wolves.

“I’d had a few chances against Leicester and couldn’t quite get them on target so it was great to see one finally come off and on the back of a win to go second,” he said. “I think Crofty (Andrew Crofts) was on the edge of the box waiting for a cutback so all that went through my mind was if I didn’t score I would get berated by him, but David (James) is quite a tall keeper and I knew he would have trouble getting down so I just aimed for putting the ball between his legs and thankfully it went through.”