Dean Smith needs Norwich City’s fans to help him dig the Canaries out of a Premier League hole.

The new City chief is relishing his Carrow Road debut against Southampton and revealed on Friday he will have a bus load of family and friends heading from the Midlands.

Smith wants top flight rivals to remember their trips to Norfolk for the wrong reasons on his watch.

“We all need to pull together and the togetherness that we can show can be our unity and our driving force,” he said. “I think the support that they were giving the team anyway, despite the start to the season, was always there. We need them to get behind us because there's only one way that we're going to go and win football games, and that's all together.

"And that's the supporters, the staff and the ownership.

“I've got some really good memories of coming to Carrow Road with opposition teams, but my abiding memory is the supporters are always so welcoming. I want them to be welcome for Norwich City, but not so much to Southampton.

"We want them to be fully supportive. Get behind the lads, let's show the unity and togetherness that will make it a very difficult place to come. I've got a mini bus load coming up from Birmingham, with the green and yellow scarves on, so they'll be backing us as well.”

NCFC Extra: Team news for Norwich City v Southampton

Smith has taken charge of the bottom placed club, with just five points from the opening 11 games. But Norwich's new head coach baulks at any suggestion he has inherited a ‘desperate situation’.

“I wouldn't use the word desperation, because we've got 27 games left, but certainly a will to get better to improve and to go and collect the points that we require,” he said. “We know it's been a tough start. 11 games in and five points isn't enough at this stage.

“I haven’t been disappointed by what I have seen from the players, to the staff and facilities. What I've seen early doors, certainly on the training ground, is that the quality is there to go and get enough points.

"The players just need to have that belief now and I am fortunate in the fact that there's not many managers or head coaches that walk into a football club on their first day on the back of a win. We beat Brentford in Daniel’s last game, and we have to build on that.”