Team News | Hayden and Byram return to training

Head coach David Wagner has given an injury update ahead of his side's trip to Ewood Park to take on Blackburn Rovers in the Sky Bet Championship on Friday (KO 3pm).

Head coach David Wagner has given an injury update ahead of his side's trip to Ewood Park to take on Blackburn Rovers in the Sky Bet Championship on Friday (KO 3pm).

Both Isaac Hayden and Sam Byram have returned to full training with the latter also taking part in a 'behind closed doors' friendly earlier this week.

"We have some positive news that Isaac Hayden trained yesterday with the team, Sam Byram has his second week started training. He played 45 minutes with the second team on Monday," he said.

"\[Marcelino Núñez\] will miss the next two to three weeks with his ankle injury, Onel (Hernández) is a big doubt for the weekend. Jon Rowe will be after Easter.

"We have some injury concerns but we have to chase the top six so, come on, let's go for it and let's do it."

Wagner also paid tribute to striker Teemu Pukki following the announcement earlier today that the Finnish international would be leaving the club at the end of the season.

Pukki's contract expires when the current campaign finishes and he will depart after over 200 appearances.

"He's a great player, goal-scorer. He made, and is still making, his legacy here. It was a pleasure for me to work with him - such a good character in the dressing room and on the pitch," Wagner explained.

"To score such an amount of goals consistently for so long is incredible. What's more important than judging him on a player is having someone like him in the dressing, calm, intelligent and knows football.

"One of the reasons why we wanted to announce it was to give supporters the chance to pay tribute to Teemu, and let him enjoy the last games home and away."

On Friday's opponents, Wagner reflected on his first game as Canaries boss, a 1-0 defeat to Blackburn in the FA Cup third round.

He also pointed to recent performances, and indicated that the current run can be forgotten about with a positive Easter weekend where Norwich meet Rovers and Rotherham United.

"If we win on Friday, everybody will speak about an exciting four weeks we have in front of us. It's an exciting time, we'll play with freedom and see what we get out of it," he added.

"We have to make sure that, first of all, we fight and work hard. We need to be difficult to break down, our recent form and results don't make us bad characters.

"Blackburn have been in the play-offs more or less the whole season which shows the quality they have. We played them a couple of days after I arrived, a good football match with lots of chances. We're looking forward to it, we'll play to our own strengths."