Norwich City boss makes Leeds United declaration after Elland Road defeat with Ao Tanaka red card view
Norwich fell to 2-0 defeat in Wednesday night’s Championship clash against Leeds at Elland Road.
Norwich City boss Johannes Hoff Thorup made an honest Leeds United declaration after Wednesday night’s 2-0 defeat at Elland Road as he provided his view on whether Ao Tanaka should have been sent off.
United’s Japanese international star Tanaka had already been booked and avoided a second yellow card despite tripping Norwich midfielder Emiliano Marcondes after a late challenge in the 51st minute.
With Norwich still having the ball and attacking, referee Matt Donohue gave the Canaries the advantage and only blew up for a second foul shortly afterwards.
Tanaka avoided a second booking and the midfielder was substituted shortly afterwards as part of a double change that also saw Sam Byram make way as Junior Firpo and Ilia Gruev were brought on.
Thorup, though, despite admitting that Donohue had made a “big call”, declared that Leeds fully deserved their victory and that the Tanaka decision could not be used as the reason for why his side lost the game.
Norwich fell behind within 40 seconds as Manor Solomon finished off a lovely Whites move and Solomon later set up United’s second goal for Dan James in the 65th minute.
Speaking at his post-match press conference, Thorup was asked whether Tanaka should have seen red and declared: “I had a word with the ref afterwards because I of course needed some kind of explanation on that, it's a big call.
“But the last thing I should make it sound like is that because of that decision we lost the game because it's not. Leeds were the better side and they fully deserved their win.
“Of course, could it have changed the game if that situation had been different? Probably yeah."
Pressed for his assessment of the game overall, the Norwich boss reasoned: “It's a difficult one. Of course, we didn't get off to the best start, it's fair to say.
"I think after that, we actually showed some courage out there, we showed some good character in the team, some good personality, tried to get back into the game.
"But we struggled, probably creating enough good chances and it was also a game where even though we were 1-0 behind, we had to defend still a lot, and we had to make sure that we didn't open up too much as a team, which we discussed.
"I think we tried to go out and stress them and see if we can provoke some mistakes and they found that space to provoke a mistake from us instead."