Arguably for the first time this season, Daniel Farke has openly called for more from his youthful Norwich side, bemoaning their lack of physicality.

Norwich lost 3-1 at home to Manchester United, extending a run of five games without a Premier League victory.

“Lessons to learn”

Farke explained, “We have to say that it is difficult for us to compete on a regular basis against the best teams in the world, especially with so many injuries.

There is a lesson we need to learn – we aren’t physical enough in the first half and we have to be there to give us a chance against one of the best teams in the world.

It's difficult to be angry with the lads because they keep on going but today was a day where the young players have to develop and learn some lessons. There has to be more physicality, we weren’t convincing and the body language showed this.”

Farke picked out two individual moments he was particularly unimpressed with.

“For example, we had the best chance of the game and you have to be concentrated and focussed to take those chances [Teemu Pukki blazed over early in the second half].

And the positioning for their second goal was disastrous. Horrendous from my point of view.”

More injury concerns

The Norwich boss also provided an update on further knocks picked up during the game.

"Tim [Krul] has a great character and he's a great leader. He picked up a knock on his knee which we were concerned about and we will have to see how he is tomorrow when he sees the doctor.

Ibrahim Amadou overstretched and felt something in his knee. It says something about his character that he wanted to stay on the pitch and try and win headers.

Jamal Lewis came to us at half-time saying he felt unwell and poorly with a high temperature."

The left-back also appeared to be struggling during the warm-up.

Refusing to blame VAR

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer criticised VAR and admitted the first penalty shouldn’t have been given but, whilst Farke agreed with that initial decision, he refused to blame the system for the result.

"The first penalty was obviously a mistake. It took two minutes and the rules say they have to be 100% to overrule the decision. It should have been a free-kick on my centre back if anything. Perhaps it came about because of the talk of there not being many penalties last week

But VAR wasn’t responsible for the loss, there were some things I weren’t pleased about."