Henri Lansbury is settling in well at Norwich City – with a little bit of help from one of the players he was brought in as cover for.

Arsenal youngster Lansbury, 20, joined the Canaries on a 28-day emergency loan deal on Monday and is in contention to make his debut in Sunday's derby.

A series of injuries in midfield saw City manager Paul Lambert swoop – and one of those possible absentees was a familiar face to Lansbury from his days growing up north of London.

'I know one of the lads from school, Korey Smith,' said Lansbury. 'I went to school with him, so he showed me about and the lads helped me settle in well.

'I'm obviously very pleased to come here and play, and I hope I can show what I can do. There are some very good facilities here and the boys were good in training.Hopefully I can fit straight into the team.'

Smith, 19, is a product of the Norwich Academy and has gone on to become a first-team regular.

The path could have been similar for former Watford and Scunthorpe loanee Lansbury – who made his Premier League debut for Arsenal last season, as well as scoring in their 4-1 Carling Cup win at Tottenham in September.

'My mate was playing for Norwich one day and I went to go and watch them, and they were short,' said Lansbury, who was nine at the time. 'So I joined in playing for Norwich and they asked me to come along. But then it all split up, the guy who was head at Norwich went to Arsenal, so I went with him there.'

Lansbury's arrival will hopefully ease the effects of injuries to Steven Smith, Adam Drury, Stephen Hughes, Matt Gill and Smith, while Andrew Surman played his first 60 minutes of first-team football on Saturday after three months out.

Lansbury has already sampled the atmosphere at City's Colney training ground and Carrow Road this season – as a part of Stuart Pearce's England Under-21 squad that successfully defended a 2-1 first leg lead in Romania to qualify for the European Under-21 Championships next summer.

The atmosphere that night was good – but will be a couple of levels higher on Sunday, when arch rivals Ipswich come to town.

'It was a great stadium to go to and a nice pitch, so hopefully once I get out there I can get the crowd going,' Lansbury told the club's official website. It's a big derby down here on Sunday, so once the fans get behind the boys then we can go and do what we do. It is definitely (a case of being thrown in at the deep end), but that's what you look forward to in your career, going into the big games.'