Many Norwich City fans at Carrow Road called for Dean Smith to be sacked during the contest with Blackburn Rovers and boos rang out following their 2-0 loss on Saturday

Dean Smith says some Norwich City players did not deserve the “stick” they took from the home crowd after their 2-0 defeat to Championship promotion rivals Blackburn.

Many fans at Carrow Road called for the Canaries boss to be sacked during the contest and boos rang out after Tyrhys Dolan’s late strike, which put the seal on the win following Ben Gibson’s own goal in the fourth minute, and then again at the full-time whistle on Saturday.

While Smith understood the frustration at the result and the fact the Norfolk outfit lost more ground on the automatic promotion spaces, with Norwich six points behind second-placed Sheffield United in fifth, the 51-year-old suggested some supporters’ actions was unproductive.

He said, via Sky Sports: “I understand frustration and disappointment, but leave it until the end of the game, because otherwise it will just play havoc on players’ minds as well.

“There’s a lot of players out there that have won the title twice for this club and they probably don’t deserve some of the stick they got at times today. I’ve always said, after the game, you channel your frustrations and we have to accept that.”

Norwich had 60% possession and 19 shots to Blackburn’s seven, but just four of those attempts were on target as they were made to pay for their profligacy in front of goal.

This result was the Canaries’ eighth defeat of the season and fourth home loss in seven matches. Rovers opened up a four-point gap on Smith’s men and are third.

“With the amount of ball we had, we didn’t create enough big chances.” I haven’t seen the figures yet, but I’m sure we had the lion’s share of possession and let up two sloppy goals. We were a tad sluggish on the ball and didn’t beat the press adequately. Smith continued, “I’m disappointed and frustrated.”

“A win today would have moved us up to third place.” We had a really strong win against Swansea last week and wanted to build on that today in front of our fans, but we didn’t.”