Norwich City v West Brom: Fletcher claims benchmark has been set

Following the 1-0 derby win over Aston Villa, Darren Fletcher believes West Brom have set themselves a benchmark ahead of Wednesday's League Cup third-round clash against Norwich City.

Tony Pulis' men ran-out winners at Villa Park courtesy of Saido Berahino's goal – the striker's first for the club since claiming he would not play for West Brom again under chairman Jeremy Peace following the denial of his transfer request.

Norwich, on the other hand, fought back to earn a deserved 1-1 draw against Liverpool at Anfield on Sunday, and Fletcher said that nothing less than matching the level of performance against Villa will be good enough to secure progression to the fourth round.

"This is the standard that we need to set for ourselves now. This is the way the manager wants us to play," Fletcher, who won the League Cup during in his time at Manchester United, told the West Brom website.

"We've been finding it hard to strike that balance between keeping clean sheets and being defensively solid but also being a threat.

"But I think we struck that balance perfectly at Villa. Those are the standards that we need to meet going forward if we want to have a good season, and we have to do that at Norwich."

Meanwhile, Norwich manager Alex Neil believes that the Liverpool result has given his side the confidence to go on and prove their quality.

"The most pleasing thing for me was how attacking we were in the Liverpool game at times. We posed a real threat going forward," he said.

"As I said to the team, I believed we could come to Anfield and do something, but the biggest thing is they have to believe it.

"We're getting to that stage now where we believe that we're a good team."