3 things we learned from City’s crucial 2-1 win at Molineux

Norwich City made it six wins out of seven as they recovered from Wednesday night’s St James’ Park heartbreak to beat Wolves 2-1 away from home. Goals in each half from Cameron Jerome and Robbie Brady secured Norwich their first win at Molineux in over twenty years and maintains City’s spot in the top two. Here are three things that we learned from the victory:

Timm Klose is pivotal

A Norwich City defensive horror show is never too far away but it was no surprise that the horror show of all Norwich City horror shows, as showcased on Wednesday night, came when Timm Klose was absent from the back-line. Optimism going into the trip to Molineux was largely dependent on the fitness of Klose and his inclusion went a long way to securing Alex Neil’s side the three points. Dominant in the air (winning 12 aerial duels), brilliant with the ball at his feet (44 passes) and putting in numerous timely challenges - it really was the Swiss at his powerful best. The second half saw wave after wave of Wolves pressure and, despite being bombarded, Klose dealt with everything that came his way. In fact, such was his display that he even made Russell Martin look good! More of the same please, Timm.

Robbie Brady is still a key asset

Upon relegation most City fans felt that we had no chance of holding onto Robbie Brady - especially after such an impressive Euro 2016 and a solid 2015/16 Premier League campaign. Nonetheless, the club successfully retained him and, whilst this appeared to be a huge boost, his performances up to now have been hit and miss to say the least. This can largely be put down to the fact that he has been playing in his less favourable position of left-back, but nonetheless, for a player of Brady’s quality his form has been disappointing. Saturday’s win, however, saw him somewhere near to the Brady that City fans so quickly fell in love with during the first six months of last season. A fine performance, in which he was a constant threat to the Wolves right-back, was capped by a goal worthy of winning any game. A neat interchange with Cameron Jerome saw the ball come to Brady, in a central position 25 yards from goal, and he duly caressed it into the top right-hand corner of Carl Ikeme’s goal. The Republic of Ireland international opted for placement and precision over power and it paid off - the strike giving City a much needed second goal cushion to offer some light relief during a second half of relentless Wolves pressure.

Norwich never make it easy

Despite being two goals up and in a relatively comfortable position going into the last ten minutes, not a single Norwich fan could relax - especially with the final moments of Wednesday’s trip to St James’ Park still haunting the memory. Thus, there was a sense of inevitability to David Edward’s 81st minute header which halved the deficit. Despite winning six of our last seven, almost all of these wins have come on the back of needlessly nervy closing stages and, of course, Saturday was to be no different. We never make it easy for ourselves. Surely we couldn’t throw another two goal lead away for the second time in the matter of four days? Whilst at the time I was fearing the worst, it is testament to our defence that, this time around, they managed to hold on and thwart the Wolves onslaught. Walter Zenga’s side had obviously learned the memo from the Newcastle defeat and launched long balls into the City box at every possible opportunity, but we held firm.