Norwich City must make use of different ways of improving their squad
In my last Fan Zone piece for the Pink Un, which was coincidentally also the first week after the international break, it is fair to say the mood around Norwich was considerably different.
Norwich were on a run of good form and hadn’t been beaten at Carrow Road for over a year.
In the weeks to come after that, Norwich have failed to win for seven matches, lost their unbeaten status at home and suffered numerous injury issues that are largely the cause for the issues in form.
Whether those injuries were unfortunate, or self-inflicted by pushing too many players too hard for too long, is up for debate. What is for certain is that Norwich have gone from being touted as ‘dark horses’ in the promotion race to now looking like a mid-table team in the space of a month. How Thorup bounces back from this will be a big test of his credentials; building momentum is incredibly hard when compared to how easy it is to lose it.
Hopefully, it will just be a case of when the walking wounded return to the first team, Thorup will be able to get his best XI back onto the pitch and start to show the high levels of performance Norwich were given not that long ago. The key will be to then manage players he has to be able to do so consistently.
The recent absentees list has gone to highlight that beneath the strong starting XI, there is a fairly significant drop off when delving deeper into the squad.