Philippe Clement believes Norwich City can take confidence from their Carabao Cup victory over Cardiff City, but insists his side must approach Saturday’s Championship clash with Burnley with the same focus as before.
The Belgian remained positive about Tuesday night’s 2-1 victory at Cardiff City, while acknowledging there are still areas for City to improve.
“Several players scored good points and we're going to need that,” Clement said. “The next three weeks we will have seven games, so it will be every three days and we will need rotation in the squad.
“We need a big squad available, and a lot of players showed a good face against Cardiff, with good quality.
“Of course, we can do some things better. I don't want to go too much into detail because we help our opponents then, but we speak with the players again about that.
“Overall, it was a positive evening, with all the respect for Cardiff and what they've done until now in the league.”
Clement also believes the response to the defeat at Millwall was important, but says that result has already been put into perspective.
“It's always important, but I don't live in the drama,” he said. “After the Millwall game, we spoke clearly with the team about the things we did wrong.
“It was mostly on the ball and with some players in the duels also. The momentum of the game was also not ideal.
“That was a hard one to take, but it's a good lesson also. But I don't forget that it was a West Brom game, we played a really good game. That we need to repeat again tomorrow.”
Ante Crnac made his return from a 10-month absence against Cardiff, scoring the winning goal shortly after coming on.
Clement says the forward is now able to enjoy the reward for a difficult rehabilitation process.
“People don't realise how hard these things are,” he said. “To be every time in the building, see the other guys go outside to do the job that you love or the thing that you love.
“Rehabs like that are never linear, going better and better and better. It's always ups and downs, so you need to stay mentally really strong, which he did.
“But then to get a reward directly in your first playing minutes, to score a goal again, you saw it gave him a lot of joy and all the team. I'm really happy with that.”
Darlin Yongwa and Bruno Alves also made their first appearances for the club in Tuesday's victory, with Clement pleased by their response to the challenge.
“Good,” he said. “Darlin was very good. Bruno needs his time to recover after that, as he's never played at this level.
“Darlin didn't have a pre-season, so he's still in a kind of pre-season, but they both responded well and they're both available for the squad.”
Clement sees the coming weeks as an opportunity to develop the connections within his new-look squad, both physically and tactically.
“It's also to get them adapted to the way of playing, to get connections with other players,” he said. “All those things are important to get points.
“From Wednesday morning, it's going to be the squad for at least the next four or five months until January. Then there's also more clarity about those things and we need to integrate the new players in the best way.
“You spoke about those two, also Anthony. It was his second game now, his first starting game, so slowly we need to build them into the squad physically but also tactically.”
Oscar Schwartau started in a different role against Cardiff, and Clement stressed that while he recognises the youngster's strongest position, the needs of the team remain the priority.
“He's a really talented player. He's only just 19, becoming 20,” Clement said. “He's played already a lot of games, Championship also, in the Danish league, and for me it's a really big talent.
“Indeed, for the moment his best position is maybe number 10, but he did already a lot of good things on the left side, on the right side for our team, and that stays a priority.
“I cannot look at what is individually for everybody the best thing because in the end it's about the team, team performance and getting points. Oskar is totally in that story.”
Clement confirmed that Ben Chrisene had no injury issue following Tuesday's game and is available for the squad.
He also provided an update on Jovon [Makama], who has returned to elements of team training following a spell out.
“He started individually in the week before also, and he was in the last two training sessions with the collective training,” Clement said.
“But it doesn't mean that people should expect to see him directly now in the team. He's been almost six months out, so we need to gradually increase his load.
“He's been two days now with the team on the pitch, playing games, scoring goals, going into duels with the others and enjoying that, so happy to see him back. But he's not fully back.”
Clement is expecting a demanding test against Burnley and praised their head coach, a fellow Belgian who he knows from his time in Belgium.
“It's a really good coach who has a clear style that he wants to play and that he will implement in this squad,” Clement said.
“Burnley are a team with a lot of experience, a lot of players with Premier League experience. It's going to be a tough challenge.
“We're looking really, really forward to this challenge with all teams. It feels a little bit like before our Coventry game last season for me, so I hope that our crowd can roar the same way that they did in that game and that we can get the same result.”
Clement dismissed the idea that Burnley's relegation and changes within their squad makes Saturday a favourable time to face them.
“One thing we need to do is to focus on ourselves and not be disrespectful to opponents and think things will be easy,” he said. “It will not be the case. That's not this league, it's relentless. Every game is a challenge.
“It's really important that we have high focus, that we focus on ourselves, but we know how much quality there is on the other side, so it's going to be a tough game.
“But we're also confident in our own qualities and what the team is doing. We can show something tomorrow. That's what we want to do.”