Johannes Hoff Thorup is out to avoid another nasty international hangover, with improving Norwich City back in Championship action at Stoke.

The Canaries picked up a first league win under the Dane at Coventry, prior to October’s pause in the domestic calendar, but lost 1-0 at Swansea the other side of that break in a laboured offering that Thorup wants to avoid any repeat.

“Based on this Swansea game, we’ll try to feed them with the most important stuff, but also use that experience for what can we actually do in this next game,” he said. “For us, it is about the basics, about what's working well for us at the moment and stick to that. Maybe some small twists here and there, but not too many.

“It is a little bit tricky, when so many players are away, and maybe also a little bit of new situation for the club here that it's so many players. I think we had two or three days last week when we had four players in for training, if you include the youth national team players missing. It is difficult finding that balance.

"We can load them with a lot of information, but we have to make sure that it's the most important information they get, because it's not a lot of time to have one or two days to prepare for Stoke.

“Thursday was the first day where we started to look a little bit towards the game. Mostly about us, and mostly about how we do things, and mostly with clips from the previous game against Hull, just to discuss some details and to be even better in certain phases of the game. And everyone was in, so that's the first day we could really start. We have to be smart what we spend time on.”

City roared into the most recent international break, following that Swansea slip up, with big home wins over Watford and Hull and a resolute victory at Derby County.

Stoke marks the first of four away days in the league ahead of November’s next round of internationals.

“We know that there will still be games on the way where they will be difficult, and we have to fight, and we have to do something that is maybe not our style, but something that we definitely should be able to do,” said Thorup. “Just like I think we did in moments against Leeds, just like I think we did in moments against Derby.

“I feel sorry for our fans, because they really have to do a lot of traveling this next month, and with the support we've got away so far this season I can imagine that there's a lot of fans that need to figure out the schedule to make it work, but it also something that comes into our mind. How we have to approach playing away from home in this league?

"It is always difficult, and there's some defensive work to be done for us. We cannot expect that we are there where we can only base the game on our dominance on the ball. We also have to be very, very solid defensively.”