Ben Knapper is convinced Norwich City have pulled off a coup to land Johannes Hoff Thorup.

The highly-rated Danish boss had turned FC Nordsjaelland into title challengers at home, and a side who could take some notable scalps in European competition.

But the 35-year-old has swapped that for City’s Premier League mission.

“He's upwardly mobile, in terms of his trajectory of development, which is key,” said the Canaries’ sporting director. “It's an exciting match for where we are, and a really great moment for us to move in this new direction that I think everyone can hopefully get behind.

“When I was thinking about what we want this project to look like going forward, Johannes embodied everything that I had in my mind in terms of, number one, on a human level, because that's always the most important thing.

"We can talk about playing styles and player development, and all of those things, but the human side is so important in terms of values - bringing somebody into this environment in such a key role we need to be confident about all of those things.

“With Johannes we absolutely are. So I'd say that to start with. And then of course, some of the things I mentioned, a clear and demonstrable playing style that really aligns with how I see football, and how I think we can be successful here, but also how we can develop players that will then enable us to trade. I think he ticks all of those boxes.

“We are delighted to get somebody that we think is such a nice fit, and we can really move forward in a new and exciting direction.”

Knapper led a painstaking recruitment drive that identified Thorup as a prime candidate to replace David Wagner.

“It's a big body of work. And it's something that we're really proud of, it was a huge effort from a lot of people at the club,” he said. “I think we looked the world over to be honest. In this day and age we have access to a lot of great information, and it allows us to be so thorough in the way that we can work.

“We had a clear profile and list of criteria that we're looking for, and then we looked all over the world and filtered down from all the coaches that fit the criteria and, and filtered constantly to arrive at what we felt was a really high quality group of individuals.

“But it was clear, you know, for me from an early point that Johannes was a fantastic fit for everything that we were looking for. We're pleased with the way that it was executed. I think we were quick and it allowed us to ultimately arrive at this place in as timely a fashion as possible.

“We go into so much detail looking at interviews, every time Johannes has spoken, key things that he's done in the past, things that you can pick up from speaking to the people around him. Often I find the people that are around a player or a coach, in this case, they're an extension of them, and you can feel a lot from that as well.

“We were getting good signals throughout and when we were able to speak then all of those positive feelings and ideas that I had about what he was were confirmed, and it was clear for me that we're looking at somebody that fits exactly what we want.”