A mixture of pride, tears and dread. Otherwise known as your first born’s first day at school. If you know, you know.

Parents in Norfolk will have had that shared experience this week as four-year-olds across the county braced for a new frontier.

So much to contend with, so much to prepare for, that fear of the unknown to overcome for the little people who to this point had a world view framed exclusively by family, and maybe nursery.

I speak from fresh experience, which is why it pays to cut Ante Crnac some slack after a frenetic introduction to his new life at Norwich City.

From a whirlwind debut barely 24 hours after completing a move from Poland, that could top £8.5m for a 20-year-old who has made huge strides in the past 12 months from relative obscurity in Croatian junior football.

To being pressed into service in a central striking role at Premier League Crystal Palace, when he was denied a first Norwich goal by a smart reaction stop from Dean Henderson. To the embarrassment of a half-time substitution, along with another summer arrival in Amankwah Forson, in the 1-0 Championship away win at Coventry.

Ante Crnac was denied a first Norwich City goal in the League Cup at Crystal Palace (Image: Paul Chesterton/Focus Images Ltd)

There was no ambiguity or room for misunderstanding when his straight-talking head coach, Johannes Hoff Thorup, answered why he had made that double change at the interval against the Sky Blues.

“I was not satisfied with the performance of the two guys. Simple as that," he said. "I also chose to tell them in half-time and after the end, that's how it is. Being a football player, you cannot always perform to your standards in every game you play. So make sure you go out there in the second half and support the team and give them everything they need, and they both did.”

Brutal but searingly honest. If you fixate on the price tag it is easy to overlook this is a young man who has had his life turned upside down.

Not just on the pitch, where he secured a life-changing opportunity in a footballing as much as a financial sense, but off it. Crnac told Croatian daily sports newspaper, Sportske Novosti following his move to England, that he travelled across with his father but was left on his own after a first week in Norfolk.

Now he is back in familiar surroundings over this international period, as part of the Croatian Under-21 squad for Euro qualifiers against their counterparts from the Faroes and Portugal.

But then it will be back into the relentless world of Championship football and trying to adapt to new team mates, a demanding head coach and forging friendships in a new country outside of his professional life.

Norwich as a club place huge store by trying to smooth that transition, and minimise that sense of disorientation, but Crnac is a 20-year-old who by dint of his talent on the pitch, his soaring reputation, and the sum Norwich have paid will know expectation comes with this scale of transfer.

Ante Crnac miscues a header in Norwich City's 1-0 Championship win against Coventry (Image: Paul Chesterton/Focus Images Ltd)

The Canaries have been burnt in recent times lavishing huge sums on potential. Christos Tzolis is the obvious case study. A series of head coaches were unable to extract it on a consistent basis, before the catalyst of a goalscoring loan spell in Germany last season earned him a move to Champions League hopefuls and Belgian champions, Club Brugge.

Tzolis looked ill at ease in a Norwich shirt that always seems to sit heavy on his shoulders. The Greek has since spoken of his difficulties in adapting to the culture in England. ‘Nothing open after 7pm’ to paraphrase a sound bite from an interview he gave over this past summer.

In order for Crnac to produce where it matters he will need to feel comfortable in his surroundings. The time to judge is a long distance into the future.

But Thorup, sporting director Ben Knapper and the recruitment specialists who have tracked his rise over the past 12 months see in the powerfully-built 20-year-old a multi-dimensional attacking option.

A player produced from one of the best academies in Europe in Dinamo Zagreb, who can be deployed in wider areas as well as down the middle.

“I made my debut for Norwich on the wing, while in Rakow I mostly played as a central striker, because last season we didn't have a real nine there,” he said, in that recent Croatian article. “I managed well in both positions and I will do everything the coach says I should play to the maximum.

“Everything is much more demanding in every sense, both tactically and physically. The stadiums and all other conditions are at the highest possible level. When you are on the field, you have much less time to think. I think I have really improved a lot in every sense (in Poland), especially tactically.

"In Poland, we worked on it a lot because it was very important, especially here. I think that I have improved the most in this sense, but certainly also in decision-making and in the game itself.”

But Crnac remains potential. In the same manner Thorup called for patience before the kick-off at Oxford, the same is doubly true of the club’s headline summer signing.

Tzolis was a missed opportunity City must strive to avoid a repeat.