Gabby Sara’s big money move to Turkey leaves a vacancy for a new hero at Norwich City.

The Brazilian departed Carrow Road on the eve of the Championship campaign for Galatasaray, in a deal that could potentially earn City more than £22m.

But the numbers that matter for head coach Johannes Hoff Thorup is replacing the creative midfielder’s 25 goal contributions in 46 league games last season.

“There will always be a history before Gabby and after Gabby. And that's how it is with good players,” said the Dane. “Fortunately, you more or less always see that the next one is ready to take that step, and hopefully we'll create some good stories also this season, and then maybe next summer you are back talking about transfers out, because someone took that step, someone made or created that role in the team.

“We have to be able to find them (goal contributions) within the group. I think it is also fair to say that we are looking at the market to see what we can bring in from outside. It will always be difficult to replace a guy like Gabby one-to-one.

"To find that quality, to find that potential in a player will be expensive, and maybe too expensive for us. So I think it's fair to look at it that way, where it can maybe be a way for us to go, where it's not only one player, but it's maybe two players.

“But we have to find players that can do it in their own way, and then still contribute to the way that we want to do things. We are in the market and we look for how we can find players that will suit our game model the best possible way.

"But also, expecting that some of the players here will now take the step and hopefully can do as many goals and assist as Gabby produced.”

Amankwah Forson made a second half debut at Oxford following his move from Austria, and Thorup is convinced the likes of Borja Sainz and Liam Gibbs can also step up.

“With Liam, I don't think he should ever try to be a Gabby Sara. I think he should be a Liam Gibbs on an even better note than he is at the moment,” he said. “I think he has done well. He had a little bit slow start to the pre-season with his injury and so on, but I think he definitely showed in the last couple of weeks that he's a player with great potential.

"So definitely we should find a good role for him, and he should be ready to take the next step in his career.”