Philippe Clement: Norwich City showing ‘clear signal’ of progress

Clement said his team had been tactically aware in defence and also showed their ability going forwards.

“They played a really great game with a lot of energy, desire and doing the right things together, the composure to play between lines, to create spaces for ourselves and create more chances than the two goals,” he added.

“He [Makama] is a really interesting player. He never played at this level [before] and still needs to learn a lot, but he has the desire to become better – so I’m on top of him to make him better.”

Makama’s second was shrouded in controversy as the decisive contact that carried the ball over the line appeared to be with his arm, however Harry Darling’s header into his path also seemed to strike a Southampton defender on the hand.

There was a key moment at the other end of the pitch in the first half when Vladan Kovacevic dived to his left to push away a penalty from Southampton’s Adam Armstrong with the score 0-0.

“He has the quality to save penalties because he is so explosive,” Clement said.

“That was a massive moment in the game – if you go behind, things are more difficult because Southampton are a team that is really good on the ball, with a lot of composure and players of Premier League experience.”

Norwich are away to Preston North End on Saturday, and Clement hopes not having a midweek match will enable them to build the fitness of some of their injured players like defender Jose Cordoba.

“If we have to play every three days, they are not ready yet for that, but they can have a good training week where we have more control in what they are doing,” Clement said.

“I’m sure there will be [some smiling faces at the training ground this week], but there will also be some tired faces.”