Faith in Norwich City’s potential for Premier League prosperity may be at breaking point but Tim Krul is adamant that patience will be rewarded.

Failing to force an equaliser led to a 2-0 defeat at Everton on Saturday and a sixth consecutive defeat since promotion to the top flight.

Andros Townsend converted a penalty midway through the first half after a clumsy challenge from Ozan Kabak and Abdoulaye Doucoure made sure of the win for the Toffees in the 77th minute after Kenny McLean had coughed up possession cheaply.

“We’ve obviously got a new team, a lot of new faces and it’s a long project, unfortunately,” City goalkeeper Tim Krul said in the aftermath of the latest loss.

“We’re building a new team and it will take a bit of time to gel as a squad, new players coming in and finding their feet – but I don’t think we need to find too many excuses.

“At the end of the day, we needed to find a way to at least get a result here. Unfortunately, the last few weeks we’ve been a little bit too easy to beat, we’ve conceded too many goals because of individual mistakes.

“You have to be honest about it and unfortunately that’s where we are. I don’t think Everton gave us too much to worry about until we gave them a penalty.

“Goals change games and you can see it knocks the confidence a little bit but in the second half we came out and we were really on top of them.

“It’s just that bit of quality when we have to get a goal and then we might be able to turn the game.

“It’s frustrating because I think we have a better squad than we had two years ago but we need to start proving to everybody that we are.”

Around 1,600 Canaries fans were at Goodison Park and stood by their team on the whole, with encouraging roars either side of half-time in particular.

Mathias Normann saw two long-range shots denied by England number one Jordan Pickford and Ben Gibson nodded a McLean free-kick wide from close range, as the visitors made encouraging progress prior to the Toffees’ second goal.

It was also a mostly positive response from the fans at full-time in spite of another defeat, after a match that left City aggrieved to have not earned their first point of the season.

“They know what we’re about and that we’re a new team,” Netherlands international Krul said of the Norwich supporters. “To have nearly 2,000 Norwich fans clapping gives you a massive boost.

“We came out for the second half and showed that we have the belief to turn this around.

“We will fight, we’ll keep fighting for the badge and that’s the big thing.”