Marcelino Nunez is a tough act to follow but Norwich City boss Johannes Hoff Thorup is confident he has the options to soften the blow of losing the Chilean at Preston.

Nunez will definitely miss Tuesday’s Championship trip to Deepdale, and Middlesbrough’s upcoming home visit, after an early exit with a hamstring issue at Stoke.

The key midfielder was set for further scans in the last 24 hours to assess the extent of the lay-off, after originally suffering the injury prior to the most recent international break.

Anis Ben Slimane, Oscar Schwartau and Amankwah Forson will all come into Thorup’s thoughts.

“The way that Nacho has been playing with his quality, with his confidence and his form it'll be difficult to replace him one-to-one,” said the Dane. “So we  have to choose one of the others and find the best possible role for him.

"We try to look at it in a different way, and see what do we have in terms of options at the moment, and to try to make a role that fits that as perfectly as possible for the player that we choose. That's the way to look at it.

“We did a scan with him just straight after the game, more or less, or as quick as we could and it was actually not that bad as we expected, because sometimes when you have a player who is struggling a little bit with an injury in that area, and then he feels pain again in the same area, you can expect sometimes that it is a severe injury.

"We're a little bit more optimistic. But I think we still have to take the conservative way with him now and make sure that he's fully ready for us. We feared it was a tear but it wasn’t.

"So positive news. He was really, really keen on playing that Stoke game, and we listened to that, and he was fine on the training pitch the days before. That's sometimes how it goes. But I think with the injury now we have to be a little bit more cautious. We have to be a little bit more careful, and then take it a little bit more week to week approach and see when he's back.”

Fit-again midfielder Jacob Sorensen is back in training after a lengthy foot injury absence and travelled north on Monday afternoon with the rest of the squad.

“He's in the fight for that position as well,” said Thorup. “Of course, he's not up to speed in terms of physicality and fitness. He's not 100pc yet, but I think the plan is that we that we bring him for the game, not as a starter. He's not ready for that, but it's realistic that he can get some minutes and then we can easily start to build him up.”

Christian Fassnacht (Achilles) is yet to return to full training but Thorup reported at Colney on Monday no other fitness issues from those on duty in the Potteries.

Keeper Angus Gunn remains sidelined with a side strain.