Brad Hills is a ‘regular starter’ in the making for Norwich City, but Johannes Hoff Thorup must now decide if that is this Championship season or not.

The 20-year-old boyhood Norwich fan was an unused substitute in the final pre-season friendly against St Pauli, after 83 minutes in the Hoffenheim outing a few days earlier out in Austria.

Centre back Hills returned to Norfolk following an impressive season on loan at League Two Accrington, but Thorup opted for the experience of Shane Duffy, Grant Hanley and Jacob Sorensen in the final dress rehearsal ahead of the Championship opener at Oxford.

The City boss then admitted he is yet to decide whether Hills remains part of his short term plans, or heads out on loan again.

Stevenage and Peterborough have both been linked with the towering defender this summer as potential loan destinations in the Football League.

“It was more important for us to see others maybe in terms of the first (league) game,” said the Dane. “But he played 80 odd minutes against Hoffenheim. He's a player where I think we will take a decision when we are a little bit closer to the window, in terms of deciding how much will we actually use him?

“I think he had a good pre-season so far. And I think he's really showed that he's close to the team. So we have to make sure that we create the best possible pathway for him, because I see him being a regular starter for this club.

"It's for us to create the best pathway for him, whether it's here or on loan somewhere, but for the moment he's close, and that's also why we keep him.”

City recruited fellow centre back Jose Cordoba at the start of the summer, but the Panamanian international sat out a second consecutive friendly game with muscle tightness.

“I will not call it a setback, because it's what we can expect with a player coming back late,” said Thorup. “He had 12 days or so of holidays after playing for his country, and we can see we have to build him to be ready to play here.

“So the plan was that we left him out (against St Pauli) to hopefully get him ready for this Saturday. That's the plan for now. But he had a long, long season without too much risk, so we need to respect that.”