Josh Sargent cannot be stopped right now.
Sargent registered a brace on Saturday as Norwich City defeated Stoke City 4-2 at Carrow Road in EFL Championship play. The U.S. men’s national team forward now has 11 league goals this season in 20 appearances.
After a 1-1 halftime scoreline, Sargent helped the host Canaries break away from the visiting Potters.
Sargent’s first goal in the 48th minute made it 2-1 to Norwich City as the 25-year-old finished off Ante Crnac’s assist.
The Missouri native was at it again in the 71st minute, drilling a left-footed shot into the top-right corner for his second goal of the match. Sargent now has seven goals scored in his last six league appearances.
Norwich City would add an own goal in the final stages of the match before Stoke’s Lewis Baker pulled back a late consolation.
Johannes Hoff Thorup’s squad are up to ninth place in the league table and remain very much alive in the top-six race.
Sargent, who is in riding one of his best runs of form, looks set to be Mauricio Pochettino’s No. 9 for the upcoming March CONCACAF Nations League window.
“I’m feeling very good,” Sargent said postmatch. “More importantly, we’ve won this game and we played some good football so hopefully we can keep that going.”
Norwich’s five-match March slate begins on March 1 at Blackburn Rovers.
Let’s just say, rapidly catching up, and call it a day
Could have been a hat trick. Maybe should have done better with his last chance but the keeper did sort of rob him and made a very good save, too. Those were not easy conversions and they were all very different. First one he pounced on an oddball ricochet and hit it on the turn, second one he juked a guy out of his shoes on the dribble outside the 18, hit it left-footed, and tucked it in picture-perfect into the top-right corner. Third one he got off his defender’s back shoulder, timed his run perfectly, and arrived to pick up a cross…and his finish was blocked point-blank by the keeper. He’s not just scoring a lot of goals, he’s doing it in a ton of different ways…and I still couldn’t tell you which of he, Balogun, or Pepi was our top #9 at the moment. And there’s about zero chance he’s at Norwich next year, I’d say.
Again, not saying he’s in Karim Benzema’s league, but Sargent definitely strongly reminds me of him, and my suspicion is, like Benzema, he could well be still improving into his 30’s and banging them in even when he’s 35. He’s not a burner like Landon Donovan (or Balogun), and his kind of game can have a fairly long shelf life.
Nice. He is fastly catching the rop goal scorers.