Daniel Farke shares his thoughts on Norwich City losing top spot to Leeds United in the Championship

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Norwich City were beaten at Preston North End, while Leeds United beat Swansea City in what was a crucial night in the Championship title race.

Norwich City manager Daniel Farke admitted that ‘you have to handle setbacks’ after his side lost top spot to Leeds United in the Championship on Wednesday night.

The Whites beat Swansea City on home soil, while Farke’s side suffered a damaging away defeat at Preston North End, which allowed their near promotion rivals to leapfrog them in the table.

Nonetheless, Farke shared some interesting thoughts to his team losing the top position in the second tier of English football by stating ‘you can’t paint results’ & you have to deal with ‘the wind in your face’.

He was asked about Leeds and third-placed Sheffield United winning their respective games on a crucial night in the race for promotion:

“Yes everything is pretty close and each game day anything could happen,” Farke told Sky Sports News as broadcast on 13/02/2019 at 11:10 pm. “You can’t paint the results.

“We were in a brilliant mood, amazing wins at Leeds, the home game at Ipswich, five points clear of Sheffield, two points clear of Leeds and if you would paint a result then 100% it would be another win and easy way.

“But in football when you want to be successful it is never easy. You have to handle setbacks. You have to face sometimes the wind in your face. That’s what you have to expect.”

In the Leeds encounter, Pontus Jansson and Jack Harrison opened the scoring in the first half before Luke Ayling gave away a daft penalty in the final 10 minutes, which was converted by Oli McBurnie.

For the Canaries, Ben Davies and a Paul Gallagher penalty put the home team in control before Marco Stiepermann saw his spot-kick saved by opposition keeper Declan Rudd.

Sean Maguire then added a third for his side and the in-form Tummi Pukki scored a consolation in stoppage-time as Farke’s men left with no points.

Nonetheless, for large parts of the season, both Norwich and Leeds have been the best teams in the division, and at this point, it could be argued that they deserve the automatic places.

But there is no doubt that this is one of the crunch periods in the race for promotion where a number of positive results could see your side claim their dominance.