Johannes Hoff Thorup has hit the ground running in setting out his demands to his new Norwich City squad.
The Canaries' 3-0 victory over Northampton Town on Saturday was their first outing under the Dane, who has been putting the players through their paces since their return to training at the start of the month.
Jack Stacey is one of the more senior players in City's group prior to the contingent of internationals returning in the coming weeks and has been impressed with how Thorup has made his mark early at Norwich by laying out his demands in playing style with clarity.
"On our first day in we were doing rondos with the ball which I haven't experienced in pre-season before. Sometimes you turn up and there aren't any balls out. That was positive for the players.
"That's been the attitude - everything we do is with the ball, trying to keep it and being a possession-based team," Stacey told the Pink Un. "Around that, it's been all about our structure and how we set up and attack, and there's been a lot [of work] about that.
"There's a lot of new ideas, so it has probably taken us a full two weeks to grasp properly, and it will take the full pre-season. It was nice to see some of that come through in the game today."
Some of those early concepts were on display at Sixfields, with Norwich bossing possession and using different structures to progress the ball up the pitch.
Despite the early pre-season outings being about blowing the cobwebs away, Stacey believes they are of footballing importance, particularly this year after the changes made over the summer.
"You have more of a football head-on," Stacey said. "The fitness comes from playing the game naturally, so that's something that you know is going to be a byproduct.
Johannes Hoff Thorup has outlined his footballing visions at Norwich City. (Image: Martyn Haworth/Focus Images Ltd)
"Especially when you have a new manager and a new style of play, these games are almost about fitting into that system and getting it going so when the first day of the season comes around, you've implemented it a few times and everyone is on the same wavelength.
"We've been training now for two weeks, I think - so it's nice to get a game in and implement what we've been working on at the training ground into matches.
"There were definitely elements of that in terms of patterns and little areas that we created chances from that we took from training into the match."
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