Paddy Davitt delivers his Bristol City verdict after Norwich City’s limp Championship defeat.

1. Meh

A miserable end to a miserable week. A first Carrow Road defeat in just over a year and a November international break to lick those wounds and heal those bodies.

Johannes Hoff Thorup said after the previous reverse at Sheffield Wednesday there should be no lowering of expectations, but an acceptance of the current reality.

Given the injuries to key players, given the suspension to Kenny McLean, Norwich look a long way short of a squad with realistic promotion ambitions. Continue this downward trajectory of results and it will be the opposite end of the table that will concentrate minds.

Thorup has defensive issues to address – now 12 goals conceded in the last six – and minus the injured Josh Sargent if Borja Sainz does not have his magic shooting boots on they look anaemic going forward.

Where you place your measure, between accusation and mitigation, depends entirely on how much slack you wish to cut Thorup, his coaches and available playing personnel. Worth pointing out Norwich's starting line up contained four players aged 21 or under.

The Robins pounced on two turnovers in each half, in a routine return for one-time Norwich season ticket holder Liam Manning. Anis Mehmeti, formerly a product of the Canaries’ academy but released to start his professional journey at Wycombe, pounced for the opener and was involved in Nahki Wells’ second.

Norwich have now taken three points from the last 18 available. That is less troubling than the drop off in confidence, composure and performance. Thorup and his coaching staff have plenty of thinking to do over this dry fortnight.

2. Harsh reality

This three-game losing swing has brought home the alarming difference between the frontline options and the understudies. Be it Angus Gunn at the back, Sargent up top or, crucially in a Thorup system, McLean and Marcelino Nunez in midfield, that assurance stamped through Norwich’s play when they are in the side has been sorely missed.

City’s starting midfield three against the Robins featured Jacob Sorensen, Anis Ben Slimane and Oscar Schwartau. Two players either returning from a lengthy spell out injured or, in Slimane’s case, managing a hamstring issue he arrived with on loan from Sheffield United.

Plus a teenager in Schwartau who has talent but remains a raw work in progress. Much of the trio’s craft in possession prior to the interval was imprecise, while Slimane was lost by Mehmeti’s body swerve for the opener.

The lacklustre Sorensen departed before the hour mark, after his third start of the week, with Thorup pushing Kellen Fisher and the newly-arrived Ben Chrisene into an unfamiliar midfield mix.

News this week McLean’s three match suspension had become four, which will now span the return to league action against West Brom after the international break, only adds to the complexity facing Thorup.

Injuries and suspension were always going to bite over the arduous terrain of a 46-game league season.

But this first sustained wave has graphically illustrated the faultline between a first choice roster good enough to mix it with a Sheffield United or a Leeds, and gravitate towards the top six end of the table, and the alternative reality when Thorup has to rely too heavily on youth or players with fitness issues.

As such, where the horizon lies for this first season in charge under the Dane may hinge on factors outside his direct control.

3. Waiting game

Norwich first targeted Callum Doyle back in February. They had to wait until the final days of pre-season to get the Manchester City youngster in the building on a season long loan.

But that game of patience looked to have brought a rich dividend in the manner he strode imperiously through the opening weeks of the Canaries’ Championship season.

Rightly named the fans’ player-of-the-month after a sunny August, Doyle’s impact and his form has wilted as summer turned to chilly autumn. To such an extent after a particularly harrowing shift trying to subdue Middlesbrough’s Liverpool loanee, Ben Doak, Thorup candidly talked about the ‘risk and reward’ element of deploying Doyle in a more standard left back role.

When he was given more defensive protection as a centre back, or greater licence to invert and roam into midfield, we saw the full range of his excellent passing, his vision and technique and against Watford in September a fearsomely struck goal from range.

This latest shift illustrated the conundrum. A superbly weighted ball dropped over the top for Emi Marcondes to head against a post in the fifth minute, but unable to get out quickly enough to close down Wells for Bristol’s second.

Although he did sense the danger to later foil Mehmeti with a fully-committed tackle.

Doyle remains in the front rank of assist makers in the second tier this season, but previous goals conceded against Stoke, Preston and Sheffield Wednesday’s opener last time out underlined there is a balance to be sought, even with a player who brings two previous Championship seasons of experience that ended in a play-off final at Coventry, and promotion at Leicester.

4. Striker light

Marcondes was the latest asked to offer a passable impression of Sargent in a central striking role. Except there is not another player in this Norwich group who possess all the same attributes, and proven Championship goalscoring pedigree.

Although Marcondes did strike a post in the opening five minutes with a stooping header. Ante Crnac was back on the right hand side, and it has been hard not to feel a degree of sympathy for the big-money Croatian summer signing after he was pressed into emergency service down the middle.

But this felt like more of the same. Dominance of possession but only three shots on target to show for it. Just like at Hillsborough.

Crnac, given time, could become a player who can exert the same influence on a Norwich attacking line up. But time is not a commodity the 20-year-old or his head coach possess right now in the pursuit of Championship results.

Time ran out for Crnac as a makeshift striker against the Robins, and Thorup was clear in his messaging, ahead of Bristol’s visit, in his view the answer to the residual question who steps in when Sargent is unavailable does not lie in the upcoming January transfer window. 

Thorup’s train of thought ran along the lines of Mark Attanasio and Norfolk Holdings are not going to arm him or Ben Knapper with a deep transfer kitty.

That flies in the face of the model to develop their own and ‘create spaces in this City line up for young talent’.

But with Ashley Barnes yet to kick a ball for the Dane, and youngster Ken Aboh on loan at Stevenage until the new year and, in theory, beyond, if Crnac or Marcondes are not the answer, who or what is?