Norwich City head coach Dean Smith was pleased with the performance from his side in their first pre-season outing of 2022/23, the Canaries beating Dereham Town 4-0 on Friday evening.
“It was a really good run out for us,” he said. “We wanted to get 45 minutes into the legs but we also wanted to play a local club as well. I think it’s good to give something back to the local community.
"It was a great turn out for them and hopefully they make some money out of this but more importantly for us, we’ve come through it with no injuries. We knew it was going to be a little bit one-sided.
"I’m disappointed that we didn’t score more. We had enough of the ball and enough chances, but that’s something that we’ll be working on and it sets us up nicely now on our trip to Germany on Sunday.
“We got a well worked corner. We’ve only had four days working with the players so far and that’s been fitness based. They’ve been working extremely hard, so some of them were a little bit stressed today because we had a training session today already, but our counter pressing was really good. As soon as we lost it we won it back again and that’s a part of our game that we’re working on at the moment.”
Plenty of the team was made up of Norwich City Academy players on Friday, and Smith said they’ll all have the chance to impress in Germany next week.
“It’s really good because they’ll all come out to Germany with us as well and ten internationals who are on duty will join up with us on Wednesday to start training with us on the Thursday, so it gives them a great opportunity to show us what they’re capable of,” he said.
“I feel we’ve got some really good players in the ranks - the likes of Jonny Rowe and Tony Springett who got their chances last season. It’s the opportunity now for the likes of Flynn Clarke, who I thought did really well when he came on today to go and show their worth.
“Germany is going to be about going over principles of what we want this season. We’ve been doing that already on a few parts of the game that are going to be really important this season. We’ll be continuing to do that.
"We’ve got a game at the end of that week and our internationals will probably get 30 minutes of that but it’s certainly about the tactical side of the game that we want, but also the physical side to get fit and ready. As I said before the game tonight, ‘don’t be a hero, the 30th of July is the most important date for us.”