World Cup trio set to return for Canaries pre-season test

Norwich City will bring out some of their World Cup big guns today as pre-season steps up a gear.

City have four friendlies under their belts so far this summer, with the third behind-closed-doors loosener coming against Premier League Fulham in west London this afternoon.

Preparations for the new Championship campaign, which is only three weeks away, have been muddied by the absence of five players – Kenny McLean, Mo Toure, Anis Ben Slimane, Jose Cordoba and Ali Ahmed - who have been on international duty.

But McLean, Slimane and Cordoba are now back in training and will be eased back into action, beginning today.

“Monday, they started to train,” said City head coach Philippe Clement. “That's why they didn't take minutes (at Wimbledon in midweek).

“Now they will take minutes on Saturday.

“Mo and Ali will come back Saturday. They're testing Monday. They will start training. They send me messages also that they're really hungry to come back and that they missed their team mates and the staff and everybody.”

The Fulham game is another gradual step up in degrees of difficulty for City

“Every time it's a new challenge and interesting,” he said. “St Gallen was also really interesting. So everything, every time, a new challenge.

“This (AFC Wimbledon) was also interesting, knowing that I pumped up their legs fully, and then they have to play a game how they reacted.

“You saw it, for example, with Bruno (Alves), who was struggling more because he was really dead tired and is not used to training that way, and he needs to get those experience also to get that kind of load.

“But those are the really interesting things because players will only get better out of the experience.”

While the first teamers will be out of sight against the Cottagers, a team of next season’s under-21 and under-18 players will be heading along the A47 to The Walks to face King’s Lynn Town (3pm).

The Linnets are likely to feature a couple of faces familiar to Canaries fans – skipper Michael Clunan and defender Reece Hall-Johnson were both on City’s books as youngsters.