Daniel Farke did not regret sticking with the same starting XI for a fifth consecutive Championship game, after such an impressive upturn in form.

The Canaries were unbeaten in eight games going into Saturday's home clash with Stoke but were beaten 1-0, despite another good performance.

Farke did not regret his decision to stick with the line-up which had proven so successful though, after an unfortunate Timm Klose own goal led to a defeat.

'It was a tough call because you are always thinking about whether to bring some lads in and we had several options with Jordan Rhodes, Mario Vrancic, Tom Trybull, Ben Godfrey,' City's boss said. 'But I also got the feeling that the players looked pretty fit and sharp and deserved to go again.

'If you judge our performance and the statistics, in the second half we had nearly 75 percent possession, we won more duels, we won more headers, we had more shots, we had more creative chances.

'So it doesn't look like we were tired, our performance was totally the other way around – and even much better than some of the games in this period when we won the games. But in general it was one of these days and perhaps also good compliments at least for the defending of the goal for Stoke.'

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With an influx of young talent coming into the team in recent weeks, Farke could easily have opted to rest the likes of Todd Cantwell or Max Aarons.

The performance of 18-year-old right-back Aarons – who is now away with the England Under-19s – was particularly impressive though, after inevitable tiredness had been starting to show.

'Max, when you watch him play it's not only like he has 300 Championship appearances but also 100 Premier League appearances!' Farke joked.

'He was again there with a brilliant performance, unbelievably energetic and there with Onel Hernandez in the last 20 minutes (on the right), he caused them so many problems and when you regard the quality of the opponents then it's even more impressive.

'It was a brilliant performance from Max and really I'm totally disappointed that we were not able to reward ourselves with at least one point, as normally it should have been a win after this performance.'