Ben Godfrey is certain Norwich City will be stronger for their chastening 4-1 loss at Liverpool, after a second half at Anfield which proved the spirit within Daniel Farke’s squad’s once again.
The Championship title winners endured a brutal return to the Premier League, with the entire football world watching on opening night, slumping to 4-0 behind at the break.
Yet the Canaries proved their mettle with a positive second half which brought a consolation from star striker Teemu Pukki, finishing in typically clinical style after being teed up by Emi Buendia.
"It was always going to be tough but there are positives we can take from it," young defender Godfrey said. "We'll learn from our mistakes and it will only make us stronger."
Unfortunately for the 21-year-old's central defensive partner on the night, captain Grant Hanley, the defeat began with a nightmare own goal when he sliced a Divock Origi cross into his own net in just the seventh minute, with an unfortunate deflection off Tom Trybull contributing to Mo Salah making it 2-0 as well.
Godfrey continued: "When you play against these teams and you make a mistake, you get punished, some of the goals we can talk about only happen once in every so many games.
"I feel sorry for Grant with the one he's put in, he's an unbelievable player, it rarely happens and it just so happens that it did tonight.
"Things like that happen in football but we have to move on and on to the next one."
PLAYER WATCH: Tough night for City skipper after nightmare early own goal during defeat at Liverpool
At half-time Farke encouraged his players to stick to the attacking style which had brought them chances during a frantic first half - and which had won the Championship title last season.
It resulted in Pukki's goal restoring some respectability, with Godfrey putting in a fine personal display after the break, with Tim Krul also making three excellent saves during the game.
The England U20 defender added: "You've just got to make sure it doesn't get too embarrassing at that stage, stick to our philosophy and our style and be proud about it.
"We just had to make sure we went out and won the second half, as they say, and did ourselves proud.
"It's good mentally, you can take some positives from the second half, even the first half we made some chances but they took theirs. So take the positives from that and move on."
Despite a disappointing result, the 3,000 travelling Norwich fans gave their team a fine reception at full-time, singing 'there's only one Daniel Farke' after a proud response kept hopes alive ahead of Saturday's home game against Newcastle.
"I've just said in there, that we're so fortunate to have them, travelled all this way, late on a Friday night," Godfrey said.
"So, fair play to them and the unbelievable support throughout the 90 minutes."
- You can follow chief Norwich City reporter David Freezer on Twitter @davefreezer or on Facebook @DavidFreezer1
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