The intensity of Norwich City's bruising battle with Sheffield United was the ideal warm-up for crunch clashes with Leeds and Ipswich, according to defender Christoph Zimmermann.

City face league leaders Leeds in a televised clash on Saturday evening, following by the ultimate banana skin of Paul Lambert's rock-bottom Town team the following weekend.

'It was a perfect example of how the Championship works,' City's stand-in skipper said after the 2-2 draw. 'I'm certainly not the best person to judge it as I've been here for just one-and-a-half years, but that's the impression I've got so far – that every game is tough.

'There are so many different situations in a game, sometimes you are up and happy and thinking you're having a good game, then you make an easy mistake and the other team comes back. So it's always ups and downs throughout the game and there are so many games, so many strong opponents and that's what it could be like for the rest of the season but we have to make sure we get the right results from those games.'

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Zimmermann has captained City for the last two games, during the injury absence of Timm Klose and Alex Tettey, and has become an established member of Daniel Farke's defence.

However, the German did have to deal with some difficult moments during his first campaign in English football, so could sympathise with Emi Buendia after the Argentine's naive foul conceded a penalty against the Blades. The centre-back felt the 22-year-old bounced back from his error quickly though.

'Of course he wasn't happy about that situation, that wasn't necessary, especially at that time of the game, seconds before half-time,' Zimmermann continued. 'But Emi is still a very young player, we all make mistakes, I know that as well, so it's up to the team to give him a helping hand.

'He has done very well throughout the rest of the game and we saw that it didn't affect his game for the second half – and that's good to see. We all make mistakes but it's important how we deal with them and how we learn from them.'