Norwich City club captain Russell Martin believes the Canaries' owed Chris Hughton a Premier League win.

Martin insists the battling 1-0 weekend victory over Hull City was the perfect way to respond after a build-up dominated by whether Hughton was still the right man to remain in charge at Carrow Road.

'All the wins are big in this league but hopefully that will quieten down a few people who have said negative stuff about us recently,' said Martin. 'It just proves that everyone is 100% behind the manager because he has taken a lot of flak as well – maybe rightly so as a group of players with some of our performances – but we felt since the turn of the year we perhaps haven't got the results we deserved.

'Hopefully that gives us something to build on.

'Every manager in this league seems to be under pressure if they have two or three bad results. We are the ones who step over the white line so we owed him that one.'

The Canaries now sit in 12th place, five points clear of the current bottom three, ahead of next week's home league test against Newcastle and Martin, speaking on the Premier League's official podcast show, is confident they will not be found wanting in the scrap for survival.

'I just think the past two seasons have been good for us and expectations rise. We made some good signings and spent a lot of money for a club like Norwich and I guess that brings extra pressure,' he said. 'The expectation is there from within the club as much as it is the fans and the media.

'We have a really tight-knit squad, a great team spirit and that is still really strong. It is a tight league and I expect it to stay that way for the rest of the season. But there has been no crisis here – we just need to kick on.'