Manning has endured a poor start to his reign, which continued with a first East Anglian derby defeat for the club in 16 years at Ipswich in a 3-1 weekend Championship reverse.

The City head coach was targeted by Canaries’ sporting director Ben Knapper for his successful overhauls at MK Dons, Oxford and Bristol City, who he led to the second tier play-offs for the first time in nearly two decades.

Manning now faces his old club the other side of the latest international break striving for a leap forward.

“It’s a tough period. But I think if you look at what we had to go through at all my previous clubs we had to suffer a lot of pain,” he said. “At Bristol for a few months we had a couple of periods where we were similarly not getting results and getting beat.

“For me we got our head down, worked hard and carried on pushing people and we achieved something that hadn’t been done in 17 years. The same as Oxford. They were in a relegation battle when we went in and we left them in second. I think we’ve got a history of improving clubs.

“What we need is the element of time. I’m trying to get to the stage where the ceiling with these players is really high by getting them to step up and take responsibility.

“That’s not easy in terms of where we’re at, and I understand we have to find that right balance of helping the lads do that while we also win games. But I still have confidence it will come.”

Manning felt the difference at Portman Road was a lack of clinical intent.

“There wasn’t a huge amount in it up until the third goal,” he said. First half, we caused them some problems with how we pressed and forced them to kick long. They caused us a few problems when they landed on seconds, or they got the build up right and went through us.

“But if you look at the first half, performance-wise, I didn’t think there was a huge amount in it, so to come in a goal behind is so disappointing, given the margins were so close.

“The start of the second half we showed a bit of personality. We basically got a hold of the ball. I thought Jack Stacey and Ante (Crnac) caused them some real problems down the right. Mirko (Topic) had a terrific opportunity, and we had a couple of other half-chances.

“We lacked the ruthlessness and quality, in terms of around the edge of their box, but in general play between the boxes there wasn’t a huge amount in it for me. We just completely shot ourselves in the foot with the turnover for the third goal.”