Stacey: City transition no excuse for Oxford showing

The Canaries were comfortably beaten by the Championship newcomers at the Kassam Stadium in an error-strewn performance that has left Johannes Hoff Thorup with plenty to ponder. 

A struggle to progress the ball from deep, coupled with issues at both ends of the pitch, allowed Oxford to exploit their vulnerabilities and left City looking disjointed. 

Although their new style of play was always going to require patience, Stacey admitted they wanted to show more green shoots than was the case on Saturday lunchtime. 

"Disappointing result. Disappointing performance as well," Stacey said. "We know it's a transition period and that we're a work in progress at the minute, but we wanted to be further ahead than what we've shown today. 

"You can say it's a system thing, but it's also about individuals performing when they need to. We can all look at ourselves today and, not look for any excuses, but know that we can all do better. 

"You can look at it from the club view and say it's transitional, but as players, we don't have a lot of time, and you don't really have time for transitions. We don't want to write off any matches and perform on the pitch. We showed that we could last year. Hopefully, we can progress quite quickly from this game." 

A lack of quality in possession and individual errors prevented City from discovering any real rhythm or patterns, whilst providing Oxford with a chance to pounce. 

Jack Stacey made no excuses for Norwich City's poor showing at Oxford United. (Image: Paul Chesterton/Focus Images Ltd)

Goals in either half from Mark Harris and Cameron Branningan condemned City to an opening day defeat that has left supporters with more questions than answers. 

"I can only point to individual quality on the ball," Stacey said when asked to diagnose their shortcomings. "We want to dominate possession and dominate with the ball. We weren't able to do that at all. 

"It's definitely [a performance] we don't want to repeat again. We know that it's not good enough and there needs to be a lot of improvement. I don't want to dress it up."