Jovon Makama maintained his hot streak in front of goal as Norwich beat Charlton 1-0 at Carrow Road to give their bid to move clear of the Championship relegation zone another boost.<\/p>\n
Makama struck for the third game running just past the hour mark to extend the Canaries’ unbeaten run under recently appointed head coach Phillippe Clement to four games.<\/p>\n
The summer signing from Lincoln, who has stepped up to the plate in the absence of Josh Sargent, used his speed and strength to good effect to blast home a well deserved winner for the hosts.<\/p>\n
They appeared to be moving in the right direction after a dreadful start to the season while a toothless Charlton side will be looking over their shoulders after a poor run.<\/p>\n
Norwich dominated the opening period, with in-form Makama in the thick of the action.<\/p>\n
The big frontman chested the ball down for Kenny McLean to test keeper Thomas Kaminski after just six minutes and then blasted a low effort against the upright after turning his marker.<\/p>\n
Ruairi McConville hooked the ball just over from a corner as the one-sided nature of proceedings continued while it took an excellent finger-tip save from Kaminski to deny the recalled Matej Jurasek.<\/p>\n
Charlton had little but well-organised defence to offer and it was not until the 42nd minute that they managed their first effort on goal, with Karoy Anderson’s shot deflected wide.<\/p>\n
Makama almost set up the opener for Norwich in the second minute of the second half with a surging run to the byline but his cutback was just behind newly introduced substitute Jacob Wright, who was waiting for a a tap-in.<\/p>\n
The goal that had been coming finally arrived in the 61st minute and the scorer was no surprise, with Makama netting his fifth goal in six games.<\/p>\n
Wright’s ball into the box found the striker well marked just outside the six-yard box but he wriggled free to blast home an emphatic opener for the Canaries.<\/p>\n
Oscar Schwartau almost added a second after bursting into the area from the left, but his effort was well gathered by Kaminski.<\/p>\n
The Danish wideman brought another fine save out of Kaminski as the hosts maintained their search for a killer second – but it mattered little, with Vladan Kovacevic’s late save to keep out a close-range header from substitute Charlie Kelman the only scare.<\/p>\n
The managers<\/p>\n
Norwich’s Philippe Clement:<\/p>\n
“I get my fuel from what the players do on the pitch and seeing them improve as they have done recently.<\/p>\n
“To be here on Boxing Day, in front of a full house with the players getting a deserved win – that is the reason you do the job.<\/p>\n
“There were lots of positives out there – obviously winning the game, that’s the most important thing, but also getting a clean sheet and getting some work into the legs of some players who needed a run out. It’s all about finding the right balance at this time of year.<\/p>\n
“I thought we were clearly the better team and deserved the three points, even though we could have made better decisions at times.<\/p>\n
“I think the squad is not at its full potential yet, and it’s about the players continuing to work hard and growing as individuals.”<\/p>\n
Charlton’s assistant manager Curtis Fleming:<\/p>\n
“Obviously the lads missed Nathan out there, he is a big presence on the touchline, but they can’t use that as an excuse for not being who they are.<\/p>\n
“It was disappointing that they were not the best version of themselves out there today.<\/p>\n
“Coming here I thought it was a good opportunity to get something after the positive result against Oxford last time out but nothing we tried seemed to come off.<\/p>\n
“There were chances to create something from transitions but we didn’t take them and I can’t remember their keeper making a save.<\/p>\n
“We didn’t show enough quality and a few of the lads looked off it so it’s a question now of dusting ourselves down and getting ready to go again.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jovon Makama maintained his hot streak in front of goal as Norwich beat Charlton 1-0 at Carrow Road…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":372195,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[403,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-372194","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-soccer","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=372194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372194\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/372195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=372194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=372194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=372194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}