Norwich City will not spend their way out of a striker injury crisis in the January transfer window.

Head coach Johannes Hoff Thorup confirmed on Thursday at Colney star forward Josh Sargent underwent groin surgery earlier this week that is set to sideline him for two months.

Summer signing Ante Crnac has operated as a makeshift replacement in the past two Championship games, with Ashley Barnes still on the comeback trail after long term injury.

On-loan youngster Ken Aboh featured for the development squad in midweek, but cannot be recalled from Stevenage until the new year at the earliest.

US businessman Mark Attanasio and Norfolk Holdings recently took de facto control of the club, but Thorup is not expecting to spend big to ease the burden on Sargent.

“I know there's a new ownership, but it’s not like we have unlimited funds and resources and could just go out and buy and pick and select whatever we want,” said the Dane. “We have to stay realistic and also true to the strategy here that we need to create some space for the younger players.

“It's an on-going process that we talk about the team, and we look at the games we are playing and we get some answers. So we find out how far we are in our strategy, and the way that we want to do things, and what do we need?

"Then it is about deciding can we do it even better with these players, or can we do it just a little bit faster by bringing players in? We discuss it every week if we have to do something in January.”

The 20-year-old Crnac has been thrown in the deep end with the injured Sargent ruled out.

“When we have a guy like Josh in the middle up front, it's not only the goals that he produces it's all the communication in there, it's all the support to the other players,” said Thorup. “You cannot give it a value and say how much it's worth for us, because it's so difficult to measure, but it counts a lot when you have that in your team.

“Every young player needs that next to them or close to them, and also the same for Ante. We need to find out what's his best position and is it better for him sometimes to come on as a sub, where there's a little bit more space and the defence is a little bit more tired?

"We have to explore all the options. But for the moment, it's not because we swim in strikers or attackers that we can just select from a big pool. We have to make it work with the guys that are available.

“There is always that balance. Maybe two, three, four games leading up to the last international break that balance was good. We had experience in midfield and young players able to come into midfield.

"We had experience up front and young players up front, and the same in the backline, which gave us that good balance in the team; where there were some guys ready to take responsibility in the tough moments of the game, and they were also there to dictate the game when everything was good for us at the moment we needed it. That's also the reason why maybe Ante is struggling a little bit more.”