Lowering the squad’s age profile required a willing partner, and Thorup provides an ideological ally. Injuries and unavailability may have functioned as catalysts in recent years, but the underlying shift is amazing given how quickly it occurred. Grant Hanley left Norwich City after nearly eight years to join Birmingham City. (Image by Paul Chesterton/Focus Images Ltd.)During Saturday’s Swansea demolition, seven players aged 22 or younger received playing minutes, with three more sitting on the bench. It was eight at Leeds in the previous Championship game, with two on the bench. Lucien Mahovo’s entire debut over the weekend was the conclusion of that mission statement. Talent alone is never sufficient. You need a first team head coach committed to providing opportunity.

“It was a big decision, of course, because he is young, and it is his first start in the Championship, and everyone could see that we had to bounce back after two difficult away games, but that’s also who we are, and who we want to be,” commented Thorup. “Even if it isn’t obvious to everyone that we need to play with a young player, we can if we believe the timing is right.” “His personality on the pitch enables him to take this step. It was also a simple message to him before the game: just go out there and play like you always do. There will be mistakes and things over which you have no control, but that’s a part of football. We just want to see what you can do with the team.”

However, like with big-money addition Ante Crnac, who came off the bench against the Swans to define the overwhelming margin of victory, the difficulty is knowing when to take these young players out and when to bring them in. “I’m not saying I’m right in all my decisions, but I think for a young player sometimes to step out, not be a part of the starting line up, and then to be able to come is invaluable,” Thorup told reporters. “There’s definitely a little more room and opportunities near the end of a football game than at the beginning. “It can give him some confidence to go out there and succeed with his actions, score a goal, come close to scoring two goals, and provide an assist. That’s also what young players require on occasion, since it’s a tough struggle in almost all of the games we play, particularly the opening 60 minutes of a Championship game, before things start to open up a little bit. “He’s been on for the first 60 minutes with a lot of starts so far this season. In an ideal world, we could do it a little more, so he’s a starter, then he’s in, out, and back in. That is how we want to do it.”

The Norwich strategy, inherited and now enhanced by Knapper, Mark Attanasio, and Norfolk Holdings, necessitates hothousing talent to boost City’s first team in the immediate term and earn potential transfer money in the long run. Thorup must excel in the intermediate period. Balancing the necessity for Championship advancement – as they pursue their declared Premier League goal on the pitch in the coming seasons – with polishing raw talent recruited either through the academy or future transfer windows to produce revenue. The genius, if you look at clubs like Brighton or Brentford, is how to manage that churn in a player squad while still pushing forward, winning games, amassing league points, and, in both cases, achieving Premier League promotion and sustainability.

The amount of player turnover since Knapper arrived, and then handpicked Thorup, demonstrates the extent of surgery they believed was necessary to keep City ahead of the curve. As they did previously in 2018/19. The Dane appears to have a leader who is well-suited to the huge challenge.

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