Boss happy to see Canaries shining on the international stage
NEIL Adams says he will definitely take international form into consideration when selecting his team for this Saturday's trip to Fulham (3pm).City's travelling players have had plenty of success with their respective countries over the last week, notably Kyle Lafferty who scored in each of Northern Ireland's victories over the Faroe Islands and Greece.
Adams confirmed that those performances will be in his thinking ahead of the weekend.
"Absolutely. It's important, particularly for strikers, to score goals. Kyle's done that really well for Northern Ireland, two in two in these last games is great if nothing else than just for confidence," he told Norwich City TV.
"Players want to be playing well, they want to be playing in the team and they want to do what they've been brought to the club for. It's the same with the midfielders, the defenders and the goalkeepers.
"I'm really pleased for Kyle because I thought he was excellent when he came on for us in the last game, and he's gone away and scored the two goals. That's exactly what you want from your players."
City's manager reported that Lafferty has returned from Piraeus with a slight knee complaint but that he doesn't expect it to impact on his chances of featuring at Craven Cottage.
"He's confident he'll be fine and so are the physios, he's the only real one (with a potential issue) from the players that went away," said Adams.
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"There were some excellent results for our players and the most important thing is fitness and making sure they all returned fit and raring to go. We've got one or two we want to assess, but generally speaking it looks like we're all okay."
Fulham still occupy one of the relegation places in the Sky Bet Championship but have won three of their last four matches in all competitions, with Kit Symons making an impression as caretaker manager.
Adams, who took charge of his first Norwich City game in this fixture last season, admits he's wary of a side on the rise.
"Kit's come in and he's turned them around and got them getting results. I think the six or seven results before he went in are pretty much irrelevant now because they're a different team," he added.
"Of course they started really slowly. Would it have been nice to play them then? Probably so, but we know what we're up against.
"We've watched them, they're a good team and they've still got players, similar to ourselves, who played in the Premier League last season so we know what they're about. They're not struggling now, they've turned it around and we know we have a tough game on our hands."
Elsewhere on the injury front, Adams updated on the fitness of Josh Murphy (heel) and Ryan Bennett (ankle).
"Josh is back out with us - I asked him the other day and he said it's still a little bit sore. I think it's right that he said that and doesn't try and hide things, but he's okay and he'll train with us today and tomorrow as planned," he revealed.
"Ryan is just about to start his running now, which is great news because once they're out there they're always on the final straight then. It's then a case of getting him right, getting him back to full fitness and then back in the squad."