Jacob Sorensen knew he’d have to be patient for his chance to shine at Norwich City.

The 22-year-old made over 100 appearances for Esbjerg but couldn’t prevent his hometown club’s relegation from the Danish top flight last season so took on a new challenge, signing a three-year contract with City.

Despite being involved regularly during pre-season, a combination of illness, minor injury issues and international duty with Denmark Under-21s meant his debut didn’t arrive until the 1-1 draw at Brentford on Tuesday - when he was called upon in the unfamiliar role of left-back, after Xavi Quintilla had pulled out of the warm-up with a hip injury.

With Lukas Rupp, Ollie Skipp, Kenny McLean, Mario Vrancic and Alex Tettey also in Farke’s squad, he has plenty of competition for the central midfield roles.

“I think there’s a healthy competition in the group and that’s how it should be,” said Sorensen. “Sometimes you can’t just go in and play.

“Of course it’s not nice to not play and not be in the squad, not going to the games, but you just have to keep going in training and show that you want it.

“There are many games in this league so games will come.”

MORE: Sorensen relished his challenging City debut at BrentfordSorensen is primarily a defensive midfielder but has a fair amount of experience in defence, playing at centre-back a few times as Esbjerg earned promotion to the Danish top flight in 2017-18 and again as they impressively finished third the following season to qualify for the Europa League qualifiers.

His seven Denmark U21 caps have also mostly been at centre-back, which is where he played for the final 25 minutes at Brentford as City switched to a 3-5-2 shape, with Sorensen on the right.

“I’m not left footed, I’m right footed, so it’s a little bit harder to go down the line,” he explained, after becoming the seventh Dane to represent Norwich. “But I just had to be clever and do my defensive work first, then second half I was tired and the decisions were not that good. But then the last 25 minutes on the centre-back position we did well.”

Now the summer signing is relishing more time on the Championship battleground, adding: “It’s tough, obviously. There are many duels. Especially when I played in the back three for the last 25 minutes there were may duels but that is also what I like about the Championship.”