Manchester, Sep 15 (IANS): Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has backed his players to recover from their shock 2-3 defeat to Norwich City, saying it is impossible to win every time.

The reigning English Premier League champions suffered the upset of the season, so far, as Teemu Pukki scored one goal and assisted another at Carrow Road.

"The people cannot expect us to win or pick up 100 points all the time. We're going to recover now and come back," Guardiola was quoted as saying by ESPNFC after the defeat.

"Sometimes games like this happen -- we had our chances to score but didn't, so congratulations to Norwich," said the Spaniard, who felt the scoreline didn't reflect the balance of the game.

Kenny McLean nodded in a corner in the 18th minute on Saturday night to give Norwich the shock lead over the reigning Premier League champions.

Norwich were without 10 first-team players through injury but that did not stop them from doubling their advantage as ten minutes later Todd Cantwell made it 2-0 after Pukki broke clear and set him up.

Just before halftime, Pep Guardiola's men got one goal back as Sergio Aguero headed in.

But, there was no stopping Norwich on the day as Emiliano Buendia made the most of Nicolas Otamendi dilly dallying on the ball deep inside City's half to set up Pukki for his sixth Premier League goal.

Rodri's low strike made it 3-2 as City hit back, but it was too little too late as Norwich held firm for a win.

"It is football -- we had many opportunities today, they had three or four and scored three goals," he added.

"The first one was a set piece we didn't defend, the second we were caught on the counter-attack and the third came from a mistake, but we know what we are as a team, we know what we have done and we know what we are going to do."