Sam Szmodics was delighted to score his eighth and ninth goals of the season for Blackburn Rovers which has put him on the brink of hitting his pre-season target.

The midfielder was twice on the scoresheet in a 3-1 win at Carrow Road. Szmodics cooly slotted past George Long to put Rovers two ahead inside 15 minutes before ending the match as a contest with the third five minutes into the second half.

Those goals have moved him level at the top of the Championship goal-scoring charts with nine. Jack Clarke, who has the same number of goals, has four penalties towards his tally whilst all of Szmodics' have been from open play.

The attacker also has two assists to his name, meaning no player has more goal involvement this season either. It's capped a fantastic start to the season for him, which saw the 28-year-old recalled into the Republic of Ireland squad last month.

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When you consider where Szmodics started the year, he was out of the starting line-up and even the squad, on occasion. His story is another reminder that new signings need time and patience to find their best form. That's also been shown by Sondre Tronstad and James Hill, who have come into their best form over the last month.

Szmodics is now Rovers' leading marksman. After losing Ben Brereton Diaz in the summer, someone had to step up. The 28-year-old put his hand up in pre-season and has been able to deliver the goods.

Assessing his start to the season, Szmodics admitted he'd hoped to hit double figures this year but is now targeting even more.

"I had double figures in mind coming into the season, playing in midfield," Szmodics told RoversTV. "I thought to get 10 goals would be brilliant but I'm on nine and that's a real positive.

"I have to keep going, keep getting into those positions and hopefully, the ball falls for me. I’ve just got to keep scoring.

“I saw a statistic recently where I think we have 15 or 16 different scorers this season, so everyone’s chipping in with the goals."

Against Norwich, Rovers came flying out of the traps and piled the pressure on the opposition. After one win in nine coming into the game, the pressure was already cranked up on David Wagner.

The early goals set the tone for Rovers and added more scrutiny on the Norwich players, with mutinous chants and a chorus of boos falling from the terraces.

That only strengthened Blackburn's hand. Norwich got desperate in their attempts to press and Rovers played through them at will. That was obvious for Szmodics' first, a cooly-taken finish after he was left in oceans of room.

Saying it is quite easy, executing the game plan is far harder. It was a mature performance from Rovers and Szmodics was impressed with how the team carried out their instructions onto the pitch.

“The manager said how they’re a good team but they’re under pressure and how we wanted the crowd to turn on them early doors, which I think they did,” Szmodics explained.

“The manager wanted us to get after them and go man for man because the way we play football, with people dropping in and getting on the ball, we’d create spaces, which I thought we did really well in the first half and deserved to be 2-0 up.

“I thought we deserved it. We played great football but the game changed when Scotty got the red card and we had to dig deep to get the win.

“That worked in our favour, we took advantage of that and played good football. We created chances to score more goals and we’re scoring good goals as well. 

"We don’t score easy goals, all of them are good finishes or from good play. The third goal might only have been a tap-in, but it’s a hard finish and the build-up to it came from their corner.

“To come to Carrow Road and score three goals is brilliant for us and it’s a well-deserved three points.”

Szmodics' position out of possession has been much higher in recent matches. He was right at the top of the pitch with Tyrhys Dolan, pressing the Norwich defenders as they tried to play out.

Having also played as a false nine and then deeper in midfield, his flexibility and the freedom allowed by Tomasson is a major asset to Rovers. It's helped him get into more goal-scoring positions too which has seen him deliver nine goals.

“You’ve got that freedom," he said. "You don’t have set positions, you can go wherever you want.

“Sometimes it’s hard out of possession, but there are days when it just clicks with the one and two-touch play, playing balls round corners, we look good footballers, which we have a team full of.

“When we take our chances, we look a great team.”