Norwich City: David Wagner interview on Adam Idah confidence

Idah has scored just twice this season amid struggles for fitness and form, but was rewarded with a new five-year contract midway through the term.

Wagner has faith in the 22-year-old’s potential, but knows he’s in need of a boost in self-belief.

“Confidence for strikers always plays a huge part, and goals give confidence,” Wagner said. “In terms of Adam, I think he’s had the most starts and game time in his career in the last six to eight weeks, and this is something he can get a lot of confidence out of after the injury he had.

“He is a big talent, an academy product from our club. He has a lot of work to do, and the most important thing is that you can’t get affected by negative situations which happen to you in a game.

“In terms of your confidence, your work rate and how powerful you are, this makes no sense. If you’re negatively effected, for sure you won’t do it better. Obviously he has some work to do.

“But I have a clear feeling from working with him that he’d like to make the next step. It counts for him like every player. Confidence will grow with results, good performances, goals, good movements and situations.

“We try to make sure that they have moments like this in training, but obviously in games it gives you an even bigger confidence boost.”

The German and his coaching staff can attempt to manufacture the circumstances Idah requires, but he admitted competitive matches hold much more weight, saying of the young forward:  “He’s less experienced, and he hasn’t faced situations like this.

“If you do that more often, obviously you are more experienced and you can deal with these situations better.

“This is a learning curve for young players, and they’re in the middle of this. Hopefully they make the steps quick, because we don’t have huge time, but they like to learn. That’s what I’ve learned, and this is the most important thing.”