Johannes Hoff Thorup insists there can be no blame culture at Norwich City, after hailing the importance of George Long's penalty stop in a 3-3 Middlesbrough comeback.

Angus Gunn’s understudy came in for social media criticism after conceding a previous spot kick at Preston, and again when Tommy Conway’s first half equaliser on Sunday squeezed inside his near post.

But Long later denied Conway a hat-trick from 12 yards that would have put Boro out of sight, and within minutes Borja Sainz had pulled one back before Kellen Fisher’s cross was turned into his own net by Seny Dieng.

Long is expected to continue at Cardiff in the Championship this weekend, with Gunn sidelined with a muscular issue.

“Fantastic for George. Fantastic for his career here that he was a vital part of the result. That save lifted the stadium,” said Thorup. “It was not only 11 versus 11 at the end because we scored a few minutes after that, and the place was on fire.

“If you speak about the first goal we conceded, from my position I think there's many things to it. I don't think we solved that set piece situation that well. We get too ball-orientated instead of finding the right positions. We opened ourselves up for that shot on the back post, which is not ideal.

"It should not happen where a striker is more or less alone in that space. Defensively not good enough. We always think first about the collective approach in did we do well enough to avoid the situation? We didn’t. Then, of course, we can look into individual stuff after that. But that's probably me and George to discuss, and not for you and I.”

Thorup highlighted the spirit in the camp to produce fightbacks against Preston and Middlesbrough.

“I'm so impressed with the mentality in the group,” he said. “I'm so impressed with the way that we can deal with the situation when we come in at half-time and we know it's not been perfect the last 20 minutes of that half, but there's so much ambition and there's so much communication going on, and still a mindset where, ‘Okay, how can we attack second half so we can get a result out of this instead of blaming each other?’ That's the way going forward.

“Two great teams playing against each other, I would say, because Middlesbrough are doing so many things very, very good to a high level. We knew there will be moments in the game where we really have to suffer and defend. But we also knew that if we could create some of these good moments, we could be on top.

“The game was like that where the momentum was for them, and then for us, and then for them, and then for us throughout the 90 minutes. But there's always these small details in the game, and George's penalty save is definitely one.”