Leading the Norwich City away end in celebrating a 1-0 Championship win at Watford, Johannes Hoff Thorup said he was out of his ‘comfort zone’.

The Dane attempted to playfully drag match-winner Josh Sargent to orchestrate the chanting in front of the almost 2,000 traveling supporters.

Thorup later remarked that being thrown into the spotlight is one of his pet dislikes.

“I despise it. No, I despise it. Because I was compelled to do it. Sometimes you have to venture outside of your comfort zone and do something you don’t particularly enjoy. I despise two aspects of football: celebrating individuals during award shows or other circumstances, and celebrating people after games because it is a team performance.

 

“I’m simply in front of a coaching team that works long hours because I come up with weird ideas every now and then, and they have to remain for hours and keep working. The same is true for players; they must do what we tell them, but they must also work hard and give their all on the field.

 

“This is a team performance. The next time we win, we’ll probably all go down there together since it’s a team sport. It is a team performance.”

Thorup praised City’s performance in the first half at Vicarage Road, but they struggled to capitalize on their numerical advantage when Vakoun Bayo was sent off in the 35th minute for attacking Emi Marcondes.

“I’m quite delighted with the start of the game. I believe we were good. “I believe we were dominant,” remarked the City manager. “We should be 1-0 up after two minutes, thanks to Sargent’s great chance from a fantastic cross from Lucien.

“We seemed menacing. We were generating wonderful opportunities and possibilities for ourselves. We gained momentum throughout the game. I believe we have a good defense. They had one header at the back post in the first half, which is respectable considering we were away from home.

“After the red card, the game picture alters slightly, and we could have done better in terms of our second-half strategy.

“We were definitely trapped between going for the second goal and just controlling the game and not giving up any opportunities. I’m glad we didn’t give anything away, but I’m not satisfied with the number of opportunities we generated.

“At halftime, the instructions were to not get carried away. To preserve the game’s structure and avoid situations that might increase the atmosphere on the ground.

“I advised them to avoid any situations in which we may evoke a reaction or anything similar, because that is, of course, one way to obtain an even game again, and then to preserve the structure and rhythm in the game.

“The idea was to retain the ball in their half as often as possible, to generate chances, and to just dominate. I feel we had periods in the second half when we seemed solid, good, and achieved just that. We should have dominated the game and had a more consistent passing game.

“But with 10 minutes to go we also needed to take a decision and say, ‘Okay, now we just have to make sure that we get a result here and don’t concede anything.'”