Norwich City hail 'outstanding' Bali Mumba as former Sunderland youngster takes a big step forward

Mumba moved to Norwich City in a controversial sale earlier this summer, and immediately joined Daniel Farke's first-team squad for the pre-season preparations.

League football has been hard to come by, after the expected sale of Max Aarons (linked with Barcelona and Bayern Munich) did not materialise.

Mumba, though, made his league debut last week and took a major step forward in the 1-0 win over Swansea City.

The two sides had been locked at 0-0 when Farke threw Mumba on in an unfamiliar left-back role.

Alongside fellow teenager Josh Martin, the pair were influential in turning the contest Norwich's way.

Mumba had a key role in the winner, his cross turned towards goalscorer Marco Stiepermann.

Farke hailed an 'outstanding' contribution from the 19-year-old.

"It was a bit risky,” said Farke.

“It is one thing to have a fantastic idea as a coach but the compliments go to the player. What those two lads did was outstanding and full credit to them.

“Swansea play in their 3-5-2 set up and they had to react because we had more possession in the first half. They changed their base formation at half-time to 4-3-3 with (Andre) Ayew on the wing. I was pretty pleased to have Jacob Sorensen there at the beginning, who is very solid, but after they changed we got the feeling Ayew is so good going forward but not the best defender. "We needed a pacy full back and that was Bali Mumba.

“But to play him for the first time in his career there was a gut feeling. Ahead of him we needed more of a number 10 to pin their full back, so I brought on Josh Martin for Przemyslaw Placheta.

From the archive: The inside story of Bali Mumba’s controversial Sunderland departure

“It was brave because when you have such a young player against Ayew it was risky. It could have gone completely in the other direction. Fortune favours the brave. We were not just happy with the draw. We wanted to go for it.

“We started to find Bali with many diagonals to give him the ball and he played a fantastic pass.”

Mumba said it was a 'great moment' and vowed to focus in increasing his gametime in the coming weeks.

Norwich City are now unbeaten in seven games, and drew level with second-placed Watford as a result of the win.

“It was great for me, obviously I’ve been waiting a long time to get my opportunity and when it came I thought it was a great time to get it and show what I can do," he said.

"I just used my pace and my ability on the ball, creating chances, just being a problem to the opposition really. That’s all I thought.

“The mood is great, every lad is positive in there, it’s great to see. We just have to come back after next week, keep the same mentality and push on.

“The next couple weeks for me is head down again, keep doing what I’m doing, remain focused and try get more minutes.”

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