Norwich 3 Burton 1: Martin Olsson, Jacob Murphy and Ivo Pinto grab goals as Canaries win
Alex Neil's side had the chance to put the game to bed earlier at Carrow Road, only for Robbie Brady to have penalty saved
ALEX NEIL said “there’s more to come” after his Norwich side surged to the summit.
But there will need to be if the Canaries are to stay on their perch.
Despite recording a fourth straight win, Norwich rode their luck and were far from convincing, as boss Neil admitted.
He said: “Our first port of call was to go and win the game. That’s what we did, so for that we’re satisfied.
“I thought we had some good performances within the team.
“Did I think we played well as a team, collectively? Probably not as good as we should have done.
“There’s good bits and bits we can certainly improve on. I think there is more to come.
“That bodes really well for us because we’re certainly doing enough at the moment to win games.
“When we do perform as well as we can, I think we’ll be a real handful for anybody in this league.”
The hosts were struggling to go through the gears before Martin Olsson struck from 12 yards after a clever pass from Graham Dorrans.
The Swedish international finished well but the Brewers’ defence was guilty of dozing.
Norwich were equally lax at the back when Lucas Akins levelled 40 seconds into the second half.
Lloyd Dyer’s initial close-range shot was blocked but Hamza Choudhury was first to the rebound and kept the attack alive.
His header dropped close to the line and Akins was on it in a flash to make it 1-1.
Norwich regained the lead a minute later though when Jacob Murphy worked a one-two with Cameron Jerome before shooting past keeper Jon McLaughlin, via a wicked deflection off John Mousinho.
Norwich enjoyed another slice of luck when ref Jeremy Simpson harshly showed a red card to Burton sub Tom Flanagan for a second bookable offence, when Dorrans’ fierce shot struck his hand.
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But Robbie Brady was unable to take advantage with the penalty that followed as McLaughlin pulled off a fine save.
It was not until the 89th minute that Ivo Pinto sealed the points with his first goal for the club.
Unlike Norwich, the visitors were short on good fortune, even before a ball was kicked.
They lost striker Chris O’Grady to injury in the warm-up and never got the rub of the green throughout the 90 minutes.
Boss Nigel Clough was particularly frustrated at Flanagan’s dismissal.
He said: “I’m not quite sure how the referee assesses it to be deliberate.
“If he’s saying our lad deliberately handled the ball, that’s a hell of a save. We’ll have to think of him as a goalkeeper in the future.”