Dean Smith and Norwich question Burnley handball in build-up to winning penalty

Norwich manager Dean Smith questioned the penalty which sent Burnley top of the Championship and condemned his team to a sixth successive game without a win.

Canaries skipper Grant Hanley had stuck out an elbow to intercept Manuel Benson’s cross with eight minutes left and Jay Rodriguez converted, just when it seemed the visitors might hold out for a point.

But Smith said his player Sam McCallum, beaten by Benson before the cross, indicated the referee had missed a handball offence by the Burnley man.

“I haven’t seen the penalty back so don’t know if it was clear-cut or not but Sam said their lad had handled it to get past him,” said Smith.

But he added that there were no excuses other than a raft of injuries, saying: “We are in a tough position in terms of results. We haven’t had a lot of balance and it’s unprecedented we have lost five players who can all play left-back for us.

“We have four games left until the break for the World Cup and we need to rack up some points.

“The players put a lot into it and I am very proud of them. For the first 30 minutes Burnley were better than us, made it difficult and passed through us – they out-footballed us until we got our press right.

“But we defended the box really well, so for all their pressure they never had any big chances.”

Canaries boss Vincent Kompany was delighted with the way his revamped team stuck at it, and urged them to keep on with their bold attacking approach.

He said: “The guys were brilliant – it was a complete performance. What I believe in is to create more chances than the opposition and restrict them to few shots, and we were successful in doing that.

“That’s why the performance was good. We got in the box and had the beating of their full-backs but when there are no goals you have to be patient, and be aware that they are dangerous in the transitions.

“The key thing is that if they don’t do it, then I have a problem. If they make a mistake, I will take responsibility. It’s something that works for us and when we give up on it we are not the same team – and we saw that in the first half against Sunderland (on Saturday).

“We were pretty rampant in the first half but in football you feel that if you don’t score, the other team will get one chance and take it, and Aro (Muric) pulled off a great save when they did.

“How we managed the game … we did everything a team needs to be doing when playing against a championship contender.”