Johannes Hoff Thorup almost has a full squad to choose from when Norwich City face West Brom this weekend.
The Canaries have been hit with various injury crises this season, but they have key players returning to fitness when the Baggies visit Carrow Road, including first-choice stopper Angus Gunn.
Third-choice goalkeeper Vicente Reyes featured twice as he suffered with a hamstring injury, while George Long came in for the pre-international break loss to Bristol City.
Gunn is fit to start against Tony Mowbray’s side, however, a fact that his head coach sees as a major boost.
“He will be available, and it means a lot,” said Thorup. “George did well, Vinny (Reyes) did well, and I think everyone was doing exactly what we could expect from them. Dan Barden did well as a part of the team in one of the games as well.
“But it’s never ideal to go with a goalkeeper who was not even with us in the first six months of the season. So that’s not ideal, but it’s good to have Gunny back.”
Headline January signing Matej Jurasek could also play for the first time since last month’s 1-1 draw with Hull, but the Norwich boss has warned that he hasn’t reached full fitness just yet.
“He’s also back with the group and has been this week, so he will be around the matchday squad for Saturday,” continued the Dane of his charge, who has been out with a thigh ailment. “Another one of those where we cannot expect too much from him right now.
“We still need to build him, and we could see that the intensity, the physicality of the league is at a high level. It takes some time for young players or players from abroad to get used to.
“So we’re going to build him up, but we’re going to have him around the matchday squad.”
Thorup delivered bad news on full-back Lucien Mahovo, who is still on the physios’ list with a knee injury.
“We still need to see with him when he’s ready for training,” he added. “I will not say that it’s too long. Hopefully the start of next week or late next week, something like that.
“Especially with Ben (Chrisene) being out for the rest of the season, it’s important to have him back. So the sooner the better, but he’s a young player and we know from experience that we have to be a little bit careful here.
“It’s a hard step to just go directly into the Championship and start to play a lot of minutes. With the intensity and the physicality in the league, it’s just a very, very different league compared to what some of the young lads come from.
“So we really have to be smart in our decision making here, not get carried away by the fact that we really, really need a player for that position. We need to think about the player first here.”
The West Brom also comes too early for Liam Gibbs, but he’s made good progress after his second long-term hamstring injury of the campaign.
“He’s been back in training, and I think he’s looking good,” Thorup revealed. “He has done well in his rehab, and I think it’s been easy for everyone to see that he really wanted to be out there with the boys again.
“So it’s been really good to have him back. I will still say that it’s too early for him to play, and ideally we want to see if we can give him some under-21 minutes before he steps into a first-team game.
“We have to plan that, so that’s going to be possible for him. But he’s looking good, and he’s with the group.
“It’s been a tough season for him, so we’ll make sure that we don’t destroy the good moment that we are in now. He knows and he understands that we have to take it step by step, and those steps are probably not the biggest ones. They’re a little bit smaller this time.”
Discussion about this post