Norwich City hit top spot after a 4-0 Championship romp at Bolton Wanderers but Daniel Farke still had to play the blame game after another penalty failure.

Kenny McLean was Farke’s choice to take the next spot kick after Marco Stiepermann became the fifth City player to miss out from 12 yards in midweek at Preston.

Norwich were 4-0 up when Teemu Pukki tumbled under Mark Beever’s challenge but McLean drove his attempt down the middle at Remi Matthews.

Farke, however, stepped forward after the game to avert another prolonged inquest.

“From now on I am responsible so blame me. I decided Kenny would take it,” he said. “I can speak about a secret now. His record in Scotland so far was 15 out of 15.

“For that I was 100pc he would add the goal. I just wanted to see a proper strike. It was a proper strike but sadly too low and for that we have to accept a missed penalty.

“It is a topic if we are not promoted because of goal difference then I will not be happy. I was confident he could score.

“Our actual penalty taker is Mario Vrancic. My feeling is Teemu could also take them but this was Kenny’s first chance in the side for a long while.

“If I am honest with Teemu on two goals I was really tempted to shout onto the pitch, ‘Teemu should take it’ but we were 4- 0 up and if I take the ball away from Kenny it would be horrible for his self-confidence. So I must blame myself.

“Mario is our penalty taker, Teemu is a good option and whatever happens in the future we will score out of this situation.”

City’s latest spot kick woe was merely a footnote to an emphatic response from losing at Preston.

“After every loss you always struggle a bit with self-confidence and it was important to respond with style,” he said. “To have a clean sheet at Bolton, we are happy with that.

“I got the feeling our performance was really, really good. A third game in six days and we had to deal with some key players and one day less to recover.

“My feeling was we could have had even more goals and could be more brutal in taking the chances. It was important to bring our best on the pitch because we pretty respectful of Bolton.

“We were sure they were desperate to add more points but it was a top class performance.”