Norwich City: Angus Gunn on Rotherham United ‘reality check’

An underpar first-half performance gave them a mountain to climb after goals from Dexter Lembikisa and ex-City striker Jordan Hugill saw the Millers land an early blow on the chin of high-flying Norwich. 

Despite a second half that contained plenty of huffing and puffing, Norwich were unable to recapture the level of performance that has earned them plaudits and build up goodwill with their fanbase. 

The defeat was the Canaries’ first of the Championship campaign and Gunn is hoping it comes as a reality check for their squad ahead of the international break. 

“There’s definitely been progress at the start of this season. This is probably a wake up call that we can’t just turn up to games and win them,” Gunn admitted post-match.

“We need to put the work in and we didn’t do enough today. We wanted to win today. I wouldn’t say that we expected to but we believed that we could.

“The way we started the game and the first half wasn’t good enough and we got punished for that. I didn’t believe we deserved anything from the game today. We caused our own problems.

“We didn’t defend our box well enough like we have in the last few weeks. It was down to us why we didn’t get a result today.”

Norwich’s performance levels did increase in the second half with Christian Fassnacht stabbing home a cross from Jonathan Rowe to reduce the deficit shortly after the interval.

A heated half-time dressing room sparked a reaction – but it didn’t prove enough to rescue a point in South Yorkshire. 

Norwich City fell to their first defeat of the season away to Rotherham United. (Image: Paul Chesterton/Focus Images Ltd)

“Everyone was annoyed, disappointed and angry at half-time,” City’s keeper said. “There were words said. Then the manager obviously tried to calm it down and reiterated that we were still in the game and needed to grab the next goal – which we did. 

“We looked to cross the ball into the box too early in the second half and chased the game too much when we could have dominated the ball a bit more and looked to find the pockets which is frustrating. We didn’t deserve anything from the game after that first half.

“There has been a lot of positivity around the group and the club after the first few games and losing today will hopefully give us a kick up the backside and push us on to getting better results.”