Daniel Farke’s admission Norwich City need to rediscover their ‘passing DNA’ may at the very least help him connect with some of the disaffected.

City’s direct approach in defeat to Leeds last weekend was one of the more depressing aspects of another exercise in Premier League frustration.

The paucity of service to Teemu Pukki and Josh Sargent contributed to a dire response when Norwich fell behind at Carrow Road in the second half.

Farke’s acknowledgement on Friday he shared that feeling should ensure the style of play at Brentford will not be added to the charge sheet.

“Against Leeds we played too many long balls, too many chip passes and we were a bit too direct in our approach,” he said. “With our type of forward players we will never be able battle big centre backs and try to pick up second balls.

"Of course you have to accept that challenge at times, in terms of the physical demands to be competitive but it’s also important that we don’t lose our DNA.

“We have to return back to trying to dominate possession a bit more, especially against Brentford. It is quite important because their biggest strengths are counter attacks and set pieces.

"If you can dominate possession then you have a better chance of keeping them as far away as possible from your own goal. You have to make sure that you look after each and every pass, because with their compact set up they will use that on transition.

“I know it’s hard when you have difficult away games at this level to dominate possession with 70pc or 80pc of the ball. But we can still be better in how we build up our game, how we try to find our offensive players.

"We can’t fire the ball three yards in the air, they need it into feet or into spaces. We want to return to this behaviour in the upcoming games and it has been a focus this week at training.

“We know opponents won’t make this easy to bring this to the level we showed in the Championship, but we have to find this balance with our DNA.”

NCFC Extra: Brentford v Norwich City press conference key lines

Brentford have suffered no such crisis of confidence after following City out of the Football League via the play-offs.

“Thomas (Frank) has done a fantastic job with their consistency in the past few years,” said Farke. “For a newly promoted side you want eight, nine or 10 points from those first 10 games. They are currently on 12 points and that is a fantastic outcome and they deserve all the praise. At this level it is about fine margins.

“They have been unbelievably competitive and strong in their 3-5-2 set up and that makes them difficult to beat. They also used perhaps a hint of fate at the beginning.

"They had Arsenal in the first game, who did not have (Pierre-Emerick) Aubameyang available, or (Martin) Odegaard. (Bukayo) Saka was just there after the Euros and not in the starting line up.

"Without those key players they were able to beat Arsenal, and then you take that confidence to the next game and they drew with Crystal Palace and you already have four points on the board, and the mindset can be different, you can be more confident with less pressure.

“We started against a Liverpool who had all their key players available and then away to Manchester City. You are there with two losses and conceding many goals and then it can become a vicious circle.

"When you are winning you just want to keep going. They have managed to keep adding points. They have every chance to be in a good position but it matters after 38 games. Let’s see where we are after 38 games.

“I like what they’re doing over there but we want to win the points. We took four from them last season and while that doesn’t help us in this game we know we have a chance.”