Liam Gibbs is firmly in Johannes Hoff Thorup’s Championship thoughts for the countdown to Oxford on the opening day.
The 21-year-old played his first minutes in a Norwich shirt for three-and-a-half months against Standard Liege on Saturday after a thigh injury cut short last season.
Midfielder Gibbs struggled to get past the likes of Kenny McLean, Marcelino Nunez or Gabby Sara under David Wagner, but City’s new Danish boss is a fan.
“I like already what we’ve seen in training sessions because he’s really been starting well, even though he’s been out for such a long period,” said Thorup. “And so I will say that the level that he started with in training was on a high level.
“At the moment, obviously, we have to be careful with minutes and so on. Which is why we restricted him to only 30 minutes (at Standard). But that’s okay. We build them nice and easy. But from what I see, he will definitely compete for one of the starting positions.”
Nunez made his re-appearance after linking up with the squad following his Copa America duty. The Chilean was deployed alongside McLean and Sara at Liege.
“He’s a great player. He’s a great personality, even though I really don’t understand him that well,” said Thorup. “And I don’t think he understands me that much. Luckily, we have a Spanish assistant coach who can translate as much as possible.
“He’s a fantastic guy. He gives so much energy to the group and always with a smile on his face. And you can also see when he plays that it’s with a lot of energy. So definitely a very important player for the group.”
Thorup cut a frustrated figure at points in City’s Belgian tour finale, and could be seen in animated conversation with his players during an early drinks break in the hot conditions.
“The speed in the game, I think we had the opportunity to accelerate it even more where we instead decided to go back and start building again, where I actually think we could have progressed and started to have more runs in behind,” he said.
“Overall we had a very good control especially first half and they were not really threatening us with anything, and when they did the structure was there in place. So we just needed a little bit more initiative, a little bit more movements in behind and we’ll try to underline that to the players.”
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