Jordan Rhodes and Tim Krul. Two players earmarked as crucial to Norwich City's success this season – and two inexplicable errors on their home debuts.

Saturday's clash with West Bromwich Albion was not the stuff of dreams; more nightmares for Tim Krul and Jordan Rhodes.

Goalkeeper Krul could only ricochet Jay Rodriguez's long-range second-half effort into his own goal to give the Baggies a lead they never surrendered – while Rhodes' penalty failure just before the break greatly shifted the dynamic of the game.

However, as a former team-mate of both during his time at Newcastle United and Blackburn Rovers respectively, Canaries skipper Grant Hanley believes the pair will bring in far more points than they cost over the course of the season.

'Those things don't happen very often and they can be hard to deal with on the pitch,' conceded Hanley.

Eastern Daily Press: Tim Krul reacts after letting Jay Rodriguez's shot slip through his fingers Picture: Paul Chesterton/Focus ImagesTim Krul reacts after letting Jay Rodriguez's shot slip through his fingers Picture: Paul Chesterton/Focus Images (Image: Paul Chesterton)

'But you've got to get over things like that quickly, put them to the back of your mind and stay in the game. We gave ourselves a mountain to climb, so we made it hard for ourselves.

'With Tim, it happens. I think through the course of the season he will pull us out of the doo-dah more times than he will let one of them in.

'But I don't need to tell Tim – he will be disappointed with himself and when you concede right at the start of the second half like that, it puts you on the back foot straight away.

'Our mindset was to try to be on the front foot. We saw how they shaped up away from home in midweek and we tried to be aggressive, tried to be on the front foot – and we were to start with.

'But then we let them back into the game, and to start the second half like that is not good enough.'

On Rhodes, he added: 'Jordan will score goals if he's on the pitch, if he's getting the chances. I'm pretty confident Jordan will do well for us this year and he will get on the score sheet.

'He was maybe a bit unlucky not to score more but that happens when he hasn't played a lot of football. I'm sure he'll get that sharpness back and he'll start finding the net and getting on the end of chances more often.'

The fact City did not give up on the game – alongside their comeback draw at Birmingham on the opening weekend of the season – means there are plenty of positive signs over the character in Daniel Farke's squad.

But Hanley admitted that only carried limited consolation value.

'We've showed that character last week as well, to get ourselves back in the game after being behind twice – but we can't keep putting ourselves in those situations,' added Hanley. 'It was good that we didn't crumble or fall apart. Especially once they scored their fourth, they looked like they could've scored another one or two quickly and we did reasonably well to stay in the game.

'But I don't think we'll look too much into that as a positive because at the end of the day it was our own doing that the game ended up how it did.'

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