Johannes Hoff Thorup plans crunch talks with Jon Rowe after he declined to play for Norwich City in their 2-0 Championship defeat to Oxford, due to transfer window distractions around his future.

Rowe has attracted interest from Marseille, but the French club’s opening offer is believed to be well below City’s valuation for their England Under-21 international.

The winger was part of the travelling squad, and expected to be in the line up for Saturday’s opening day defeat, until he informed head coach Thorup earlier in the day he was not in the right frame of mind to play.

The Dane confirmed afterwards he expects to hold talks with Rowe, and sporting director Ben Knapper, as soon as Sunday.

This was a transcript of Thorup’s post-match reaction

“The next plan is that him and I and also Ben needs to have a conversation about what happened today and how can we help him continue moving forward. As I said in Austria, sometimes things like this happens, and it's for us to find the best possible solution and then start working forward.

“But most of it will be internally between the two or three guys of us.

“You need to prepare for more or less everything when the transfer window is open. That's a part of the game, and as long as the season is started while the window is open as well, you have to be prepared, and you have to be able to react. It's not ideal.

“If I was a team mate, I will not be happy about the situation. But that's how it is. We have to deal with it, and we’ll find a solution.

“(Have you experienced that before on the eve of a game?) Not particularly that. But of course, I come from a club where we also used to sell a lot of players, and where a transfer window could be quite hectic.

"I've seen plenty of things in my career as a coach, and I know the only response to that is to take it as easy as possible, and just focus on the players that are about to perform in the game. That's the only thing that really matters for me.

“(Has he been badly advised?) I have no idea. It was his decision. It was his words. I respected him. That's how it is. And I just needed, as the coach, to focus on players that were actually ready to play and ready to perform. That has been my focus for the day. And then, of course, like I said, we will see tomorrow how we deal with it internally and what we do going forward.

“Of course it should not happen. What's important for us is to build the environment, build the culture. And we should not have a culture where something like that is accepted.

“(Is there a way back for him?) There will always be, and it's just a matter of behaviour and how the players respond to this. Of course, it's a situation that should not happen, but you can never know what happens tomorrow.

“We can have a good conversation, and we can have a not so good conversation, you never know. What's important for me is that I look at this group and we have to build a strong culture.

“We have to build an environment based on players that have the desire to perform for Norwich, wherever we play, because that's important, and also for everyone around to respect that it is important that a club cannot be run by too many players.

“Not ones where they have ambitions to go somewhere else in the middle of a game day. We have to build that culture. We have to build that environment. Because it needs to be even stronger. That's where my focus is.”