Sergi Canos will struggle to force his way into Norwich City's starting line up for the Championship opener at Blackburn.

The teenage attacker, signed from Liverpool earlier this summer, was a surprise omission from the squad that lost 3-2 to Hannover 96 on Saturday at Carrow Road.

Canos was on duty, and scored, in a 2-0 friendly win down at Dartford on the same afternoon, along with Carlton Morris, and Alex Neil revealed the Spaniard needs miles on the clock to be ready for the club's Championship bid.

'I just think Sergi at the moment, fitness-wise, is probably a little bit behind and he needed to go and get 90 minutes which I couldn't guarantee in our game,' he said. 'We sent him to Dartford to give him enough minutes. He will be in the squad and available (for Blackburn). I am not sure he will be ready to start but we will be monitoring him.'

Meanwhile, Steven Naismith believes City just want the real action to start after wrapping up their summer against the Germans.

Naismith played 80 minutes after resuming the partnership with Cameron Jerome that brought both a goal in the 2-1 friendly win over Rubin Kazan the previous weekend.

The Scottish international is poised for a leading role in the Canaries' Championship promotion push as Neil's men strive to bounce back at the first attempt.

'The squad's ready and the boys have been working hard throughout pre-season,' he said. 'It was good to get back out into the familiar surroundings of Carrow Road. We're now looking forward to getting into the league fixtures. Everybody is happy to have the competitive stuff starting now. Hopefully we can start off with a few good results.'

Naismith echoed his manager's post-match thoughts the hosts paid for a sluggish start.

'They pressed us very high from the off,' he told the club's official site. 'They got the rewards from it but as we grew into the game we sussed out the way they were playing. We showed with a bit of patience we could break them down. In the second half you could see that especially. We created chances against a good team, so it was a good test for us. Apart from the first half an hour we came through it pretty well.'