Johannes Hoff Thorup hopes Norwich City fans are as excited as him as he prepares to get his Canaries’ era underway at Northampton.

Thorup will take charge of his first match since replacing David Wagner in an opening pre-season friendly trip on Saturday to Sixfields.

The 35-year-old Dane arrived in England with a growing reputation in the game after an impressive 18 months at FC Nordsjælland.

“We know better than anyone I think that this is a club where Premier League will always be that thing we discuss when a season starts,” he said. “And to be fair, there's so much quality in this squad of players, staff, and support from more or less everyone. Definitely that will always be the ambition.

“We can talk about being patient, and of course we have to be because we are about to build something here. But we have to be competitive as well. And that's the fine balance to always juggle between. It will be tough, and it will be hard and it will be difficult, but hopefully also fun.

“At the end of the day, it's our fans who play a big role in our football club. And without them, it would never really be worth it. It's important that they have an understanding of what's really going on, how we want to play, how we want to structure the club and how the environment should be.”

Thorup knows his brief is far more than winning games of football, but developing first team talent and, down the line, transfer revenue.

“A team that wins and excites fans is the short answer. But of course, also, from a club perspective, to create players that are interesting for even bigger clubs than us,” he said, “Ben (Knapper) said it in the forum it would be kind of sad if we had a summer window when no one was calling, because it would just mean that we have no players that are really interesting.

"We have to create that style of play where the attacking players can perform, they can show what they can do, they can play with each other and they are comfortable in combinations and so on. They can then show their qualities, and that's important for us.

“And that's important in the way that we approach things, both, of course, for us to get results but also to generate some transfers so we can put even more emphasis on our academy, even more emphasis on our first team here.

"It's a process where it will take some time, but we can build nice and easy from season to season.”