Norwich head coach Daniel Farke believes on-loan Manchester United defender Brandon Williams can make an impact as his team battle to stay in the Premier League – but will not expect too much too soon.
England Under-21 international Williams put the finishing touches to his season-long deal on Monday and could make his debut in the Carabao Cup tie against Bournemouth on Tuesday night at Carrow Road.
The 20-year-old full-back brings with him European experience, having coming through the youth ranks at Old Trafford before making his senior United debut in September 2019.
The Canaries are in need of a lift, having opened their Premier League campaign with successive defeats, taken apart 5-0 at Manchester City on Saturday.
Farke, though, does not want to put too much pressure on Williams to hit the ground running.
"Brandon is a young player full of potential, who has proved himself already at this level for a top club side, also in Europe," said Farke.
"But like always with young players, we are a bit careful – it is not like after two days in he will wear the captain's armband and cut the Premier League to pieces for us.
"But we are fully convinced of his strengths and it was also a position we have been looking at because we only had one natural left full-back in our squad with Dimitris Giannoulis.
"Brandon is a confident young guy, is competitive and brave.
"But we don't put too much pressure on his shoulders. He just has to perform when he gets the nod to start.
"We are convinced he will help us, but there is competition in these places – Giannoulis at left-back, then Max Aarons and Bali Mumba at right-back."
🗣 DF: "Placheta will return after the international break. With Zimmermann, I'm confident he's available for tomorrow." pic.twitter.com/FyO0UCqsEB — Norwich City FC (@NorwichCityFC) August 23, 2021
Defender Christoph Zimmermann could return against Bournemouth after missing the defeat at Manchester City because of illness, while Greek winger Christos Tzolis and American striker Josh Sergeant are among those who look set to be drafted in.
"I am a deep believer in cup competitions because I want to go into the next round, but I will need to rotate for two reasons," Farke said.
"First, we have a deep squad and I want to use this and two we had a disruptive pre-season, which makes it a bit difficult to play every three or four days."
FULL-TIME | We cap off the season with another five star performance 💫🔥 🔵 5-0 🟡 #ManCity | https://t.co/axa0klD5re pic.twitter.com/a84vbcVETD — Manchester City (@ManCity) July 26, 2020
Norwich's defending against Manchester City was labelled 'naive' after the champions went 2-0 up inside 22 minutes and scored from all four of their shots on target.
Farke said: "This is part of the business, the games will of course be analysed more – when we lose a game 5-0 I don't expect the pundits to praise us.
"You have to point the finger at what we could have done better and it will be the other way around when we win, we will probably be praised a bit too much.
"I was also not overly happy after the game with our defending behaviour. It is important not to hide from this fact, but we are also trying to stay balanced."
🍾 @NorwichCityFC 🍾#EFL | #SkyBetChampionship pic.twitter.com/odh7ZT9uhm — Sky Bet Championship (@SkyBetChamp) May 8, 2021
Farke added: "If someone says we don't have the right to play at the Premier League level – (we got) 97 points in the Championship last season, the title win.
"We did not win our place on the lottery, we have earned our right to play on the top level and are a self-funding club.
"I am pretty sure that in the end this team will have done everyone proud who is connected with the yellow shirt."
