Paul Lambert praised his battered and bruised Aston Villa team for putting in a performance that was good enough to take away all three points. The Scot was returning to his former club Norwich and the 1-0 scoreline secured his third win in three games in Norfolk since he left to take over at Villa Park.

His side survived conceding an early penalty and a first-half injury to Christian Benteke to take the lead through the Belgium international’s replacement, Libor Kozak.

One goal has usually not been enough for Villa to take all three points, but they hung on to keep their first clean sheet in 26 Premier League outings, to leave Lambert praising his side’s commitment. “The result was the most important thing, rather than the performance,” he said. “What I am really pleased about is we had a few lads carrying knocks and we asked them to go out and perform. I thought they were brilliant.

“We were missing Jores [Okore] and Ashley [Westwood], who have been big players for us, and we had to patch a few others up. In that opening 10 minutes I felt we could have been 2-0 up and then we conceded a soft penalty.”

Robert Snodgrass’s penalty was saved by Brad Guzan after the referee, Chris Foy, had pointed to the spot for a handball against Ciaran Clark. The American goalkeeper has been in great form for Villa and kept the visitors ahead with a couple of fantastic second-half stops. “He made a brilliant save on the penalty,” Lambert said. “He played a major part in the result, but that is what we pay him for. That is his job. His job is to make saves, but he has been like that for me for the past year.

“This is a big season for him with the World Cup – and for us – but he is an absolute top pro and top man. I have seen him do it in training every day and his performances every day have been to that standard.”

It was only Norwich’s second home league defeat in 12 matches, with the previous one also dished out by Villa towards the end of last season. The Norwich manager, Chris Hughton, had demanded a reaction from his players after a meek display in defeat at Tottenham last weekend and felt his side were better.

“On occasions when we haven’t deserved to get anything, we have been quick to put our hands up,” he said. “I don’t think that was the case today. On the balance of play we created good chances and we added an offensive endeavour to our play. The result does not reflect our performance. What we didn’t have at the end of it was a bit of quality, fortune and guile to get us the goal we deserved.”

Hughton backed Snodgrass to take further penalties but admitted he expected the club-record signing, Ricky van Wolfswinkel, to step up.

“Sometimes what you will have on that occasion is a lad who feels very confident that he is going to put it away,” he added. “That was very much the case with Robert – when you have a penalty you are expected to score. If you have an inspired goalkeeper who guesses the right way it is tough.

“We were all expecting Ricky to take it. Those conversations are very private, but I expected him to take it and, if we get one in the future, then I would expect him to take it.”