Pilkington in the pink as Canaries stand firm

Norwich 2 Sunderland 1

The Canaries looked to be cruising when a second goal in eight days from former Newcastle defender Sebastien Bassong and a smart finish from Pilkington gave the home side a well-deserved two-goal lead.

But Craig Gardner pulled one back just before the break for Sunderland, who lost top scorer Steven Fletcher to injury at half time, only for a combination of poor finishing and fine rearguard action from Norwich to deny them an equaliser.

Pilkington said: “I think first-half we were brilliant. We passed the ball really well and we’ve scored two good goals and right at the end of the first half we’ve conceded a sloppy goal.

“We didn’t think they were in it too much and it’s made the second half difficult. But we’ve shown how strong we are again. We’re going in the right direction.”

NORWICH: M Bunn; S Whittaker, S Bassong, R Bennett, J Garrido, R Snodgrass (E Bennett 77), A Tettey, B Johnson, A Pilkington, W Hoolahan (J Howson 88), G Holt.

SUNDERLAND: S Mignolet, P Bardsley, M Kilgallon, C Cuellar, D Rose, A Johnson, C Gardner, S Larsson (D Vaughan 90), J McClean (F Campbell 85), S Sessegnon, D Fletcher (C Wickham 46).

Ref: Phil Dowd (Staffordshire).