City’s more cautious approach yielded three precious points against West Brom last week, but Thorup is hoping his players can return to their possession-heavy and offensive approach against the Championship’s bottom club.
Josh Sargent’s 92nd-minute winner ensured the ends justified the means at Carrow Road, but City’s head coach is anticipating an entirely different challenge at Home Park.
“That’s probably the first challenge, and that is to break them down, because they will be defending low in moments. Then they will definitely also go and press us in moments of the game, like they have done in all their home games.
“It’s for us to find that balance when they step up, then recognise the space that will open up when they defend low, then have a lot of collective movements, a lot of combinations going on, so we can break them down and create chances.
“It’s not an easy game to play, and then especially also the context about it, where they fight for their position in the league,” said Thorup.
“That is something you will see when you step into the last 10 games of the season, that now it’s really clear who is fighting to get to stay in the league, and they are obviously one of the teams, so it will not be an easy game for us.”
In recent weeks, City have struggled in Carrow Road clashes against teams towards the bottom of the division in Oxford United and Derby, both of who played a back five against Thorup’s men.
The Dane rejected any suggestion that City struggle against that set-up, which Miron Muslic has deployed since replacing Wayne Rooney at Argyle in January.
“It’s been more about our defensive output, where Oxford created absolutely nothing against us, and they got a point, and the Derby game was the same, because you’re not expected to score three goals every time you play, and sometimes you just have to be able to win 1-0.
Norwich City deployed a more defensive approach against West Brom last weekend. (Image: Paul Chesterton/Focus Images Ltd)“We have a good idea of who we are when we’re at our best, but we cannot expect to play like we did Watford at home, or Hull at home, or Plymouth at home, or Swansea at home, or Stoke at home, we cannot expect that every time, so we have to be able to find points when we’re not on that level, and that sometimes is a 1-0 win.
“We also looked at it stats-wise and could see that I think it was 14 games this season where we have had less than one expected goal, and only three of them have been against five back lines,” he said.
“Sometimes you see something and you think that because we struggled in this game or because we didn’t get a result in this game, it must be because of this, but we also have to look a little bit deeper into it.
“I’m not saying we have it easy against five back lines, but we come from a game against Sheffield Wednesday where we did some very, very good offensive stuff, especially in the first half. We can do it; we’ve done it many times, and it’s just finding the right balance.”
That West Brom victory, whilst effective, isn’t the template that Thorup wants to utilise regularly as he continues to build his desired game picture with the Canaries.
The hope is that last weekend’s change of tact can help City troops build both the defensive foundations and confidence into a more offensively minded performance in Devon.
“Hopefully they will show that we have learned from it and that we can be more solid in times, and there will also be those moments on Saturday where we have to be solid, compact, to deal with crosses and set pieces,” City’s boss said. “We will have to do it with quality.
“I always appreciate when we are more on the ball than the opponent. That’s my basic idea of football: I prefer to have the ball instead of the opposite. I also prefer to be the team that tries to dominate the game and create chances instead of the opposite.
Josh Sargent produced a much-needed winner for Norwich City against West Brom last weekend. (Image: Paul Chesterton/Focus Images Ltd)“Without giving too much away, I think people can expect that we will be trying to go back to where we have been good, but again, taking bits from the Saturday game.”
Thorup’s finals word in Wednesday’s press conference were to the Norwich supporters preparing to make their longest trip of the season to support their side at Home Park.
“I was surprised and impressed already in pre-season where we played the first game away in Northampton, where there were a lot of fans,” said Thorup. “I was surprised even in training camp where there were fans.
“I’ve been impressed really with the away performance (of the fans) because we are more than 1,000, sometimes up to 2,000. That’s one of the main reasons why we play, because without them we are absolutely nothing.”
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