Daniel Farke is banking on Christoph Zimmermann to shore up his leaky Norwich City backline after blowing a 3-1 lead in a painful 4-3 Championship defeat at Hull City.

Zimmermann missed out with a sickness bug but Farke is keen to involve him in Tuesday's latest away test at Barnsley, following a sixth winless league game.

Farke has reverted to a back four in the recent absence of the towering German, but the head coach insists the problems at Hull cut deeper than the formation.

'We played with a four-man defence in the two previous games, and kept clean sheets, but I am looking forward to Christoph coming back in,' he said. 'He is crucial but in general we have to defend better individually.

'Before, we talked about one loss in 14 games and now we lose this game and after several draws it is disappointing.'

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Moritz Leitner had further treatment on his hamstring injury at the club's Colney base on Sunday, but the onus is likely to remain on James Maddison at Oakwell after his first career hat-trick.

'It is a bit sad for him that we are not there with a better defence behaviour so we can really celebrate his hat-trick.

'Normally he should be able to do that,' said Farke.

'When Hull get back to 3-3 you can see they are desperate for the points.

'We had a chance with Onel Hernandez, and you think normally it must be a goal, 100pc, and then it is us who go in the lead. I had this feeling the chance for Onel - if it had been James in that situation - he would be able to score.

'One minute later we concede a counter and there are big mistakes in a one-versus-one situation. It is hard to accept a loss when you score three goals.

'It doesn't look too good (for Moritz). I think we have to do without him for the next few weeks.

'It doesn't help our game - in terms of controlling the possession.

'It was not on a good level in this game and it doesn't help when he leaves the pitch.'