Daniel Farke has hailed his side's dramatic 1-0 victory at Blackburn as the most important win of the season so far, as his Canaries climbed back to the top of the Championship table.

Teemu Pukki's 13th league goal of the campaign snatched the three points in the 86th minute of a hard-fought battle at Ewood Park, where Rovers had lost just one of their last 31 home league games.

'It's a massive win!' Farke declared. 'We've had several outstanding performances and brilliant wins, played some nice football with four goals away or whatever but my feeling is this was the biggest win of the whole season.

'It's a massive win for us, especially with the situation we had to handle during the game, big compliments to the lads, we are all pleased.'

The triumph moves City two points clear of Leeds, who don't play until tomorrow afternoon when they face a tough match at Aston Villa.

Farke is not worrying about that though, with his team sitting pretty on 47 points at the halfway stage of the season.

'I don't pay too much attention to the table, there is no time to do this, a pretty busy period and we have to make sure we go further on,' City's head coach said ahead of a home clash with Nottingham Forest on Boxing Day.

'To be honest I'm a bit more concerned about who is available for the next games, as today we also had to do without Timm Klose, Grant Hanley is just coming back after a long injury, two key players in Moritz Leitner and Emi Buendia probably injured for the next game.

'A few tasks, there will be a lot of work during the Christmas days, but it is how it is and we will try to find some good solutions.'

Those injuries saw Buendia limp off in the 20th minute and replaced by Onel Hernandez, and Leitner replaced by Mario Vrancic at the break – and going on to play a key role in the winning goal.

'Not too good, we have to wait and see how it develops,' Farke continued. 'In general we were on the front foot, the dominating side and Blackburn understandably tried to break our rhythm, tried to annoy us and take our concentration away.

'They chose to do this with several fouls and again I don't complain, we have to accept this, but out of these fouls we had injuries of key players.

'For example the ball was 10 metres away and there was a foul against Emi Buendia and we had to substitute him with a dead leg, and then there was a nasty tackle against Moritz Leitner.

'He tried to go further on and close to the final whistle he got another knock and there was no chance for him to continue further on. There was a goal and no-one can explain why this was disallowed, for a foul against Marco Stiepermann.

'But anyhow we get the foul against us in this set-piece situation and it's so difficult to handle this.

'Again, no complaints about the style of Blackburn, we would probably try to do the same if we faced a Premier League side in the FA Cup, to break the rhythm, take the concentration away.

'I told the players we had to show a good balance between being angry and competitive, to win our duels, stick to our plan and not let them annoy us, let it be our game, especially in the second half.

'That's what we did and to be there in the end with such a well deserved win is massive, especially with such an inexperienced side, against a side with one loss in their last 31 home (league) games.

'Big compliments to Tony and his lads, I think they are doing a fantastic job, it's outstanding for us and a massive win.'