Tottenham 1 Norwich 1 (2-3 Pens): Krul the hero as he saves from Parrott and Fernandes to dump Spurs out of FA Cup
TIM KRUL was the hero as Norwich City dumped Tottenham out of the FA Cup following a penalty shoot-out in North London.
The Canaries goalkeeper saved from youngster Troy Parrott and Gedson Fernandes as Todd Cantwell kept his cool inbetween stops to seal a quarter-final place with a spot-kick victory.
The result heaped more misery on Jose Mourinho – and caused a furious row post-match as Eric Dier raced into the crowd to confront a supporter who allegedly insulted his brother.
But despite their relegation fears, Norwich are now dreaming of Wembley as they prepare to face either Derby or Manchester United in the last-eight.
It’s the first time in 28 years they have reached this stage of the competition.
They fell behind after just 13 minutes in North London when Jan Verthongen headed home a corner from Giovani lo Celson.
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But despite the advantage, Spurs struggled to contain the visitors and were pushed back for long spells.
City stars Emiliano Buendia and Lukas Rupp both forced stand-in stopper Michel Vorm into smart saves.
However, just as it looked like the Canaries would suffer a frustrating night they were handed a lifeline.
Just 12 minutes remained when Norwich hit back thanks to a Vorm howler.
The keeper dropped a Kenny McClean shot which was straight at him – and Josip Drmic was quickest to react to bundle the ball over the line.
Spurs did have a chance at the end of the 90 to snatch it only for Ben Godfrey to clear Serge Aurier’s low drive off the line.
That led to the additional half hour as Mourinho turned to 18-year-old striker Parrott to spare his side’s blushes.
But neither team was able to find a breakthrough to leave the tie to be decided from the spot.
Dier stepped up first to put Tottenham ahead as McClean’s penalty was then saved by Vorm.
But Erik Lamela then skied his as things quickly went south, and despite Lo Celso hitting the target, it was Norwich who emerged triumphant 3-2 in the shoot-out to spark a wild celebration in front of their joyous 9,000 travelling support.
Mourinho said afterwards: “I think we don’t deserve the result but that’s football. As you can expect it was a difficult game, as I could expect some of my players were really really in trouble and they made an incredible effort to try.
“I am not going to say what everybody knows so this time I am not going to say that but I have to say Steven Bergwijn, it’s too much for him to play so many minutes like he is doing. I prefer to call Lucas [Moura] a hero, he is playing every minute of every game in every position to help the team but he told me he had to go out of he’s going to get injured.
“Harry Winks was completely dead. I think he’s started 11-12 games in a row, we had many many players in trouble.
“The solutions were solutions but we weren’t improving the team. We were the only team that could win in 90 minutes, we were the only team trying in the last 10 minutes. The same in extra-time. Penalties are penalties, we missed them so congratulations to Norwich that’s the only thing I can say.
“I don’t have one single negative feeling towards my players, the opposite, they tried fantastic things. I am really, really sad for the boys, I can cope with the bad result and with negative moments, I’ve had so many, but I am really sad for the players.”