Norwich City are ready to ramp up Jon Rowe's involvement after his welcome early return from injury, but David Wagner won't offer the young winger any guarantees. 

The winger returned from a hamstring injury earlier than thought to feature as a substitute in Saturday's 1-0 victory over Preston North End as City tightened their grip on the Championship top six with three games remaining. 

Rowe has been sidelined since February with a hamstring injury sustained in a 2-2 draw with QPR and impressed with an impactful display at Deepdale. 

His return means Norwich now have plenty of competition in forward areas, with Borja Sainz finding form, Gabriel Sara adapting to a more advanced role, and Wagner preferring a front two of Josh Sargent and Ashley Barnes. 

City's boss is confident Rowe will show his importance in this crucial period of the campaign but will not hand out any gimmes. 

"It was for everyone a really big boost and I'm super happy for him that his hard work paid off. He is back a little bit earlier than we expected, and if you've seen him today, then he worked very hard defensively and was always in the right spots.

"He supported Sam (McCallum) super good defensively and offensively. He has shown again the quality that he has and he is a threat," City's boss said. "Now, with another full week of training, we hope that he can get even more minutes next weekend.

"He is an intelligent man. A young one, yes, but it is not difficult to manage him. I think he has seen that the team played very well and won a lot of games without with so it's not as easy as it seems.

"We are super happy that he is back. He will be as important as he was at the beginning of the season, and he was important again for the team and this football club today."

The Pink Un: Jonathan Rowe returned to Norwich City's squad after two months sidelined with a hamstring injury.Jonathan Rowe returned to Norwich City's squad after two months sidelined with a hamstring injury. (Image: Paul Chesterton/Focus Images Ltd)

Wagner delivered a positive injury bulletin ahead of the final weeks of the campaign. Norwich's squad has looked thin in recent weeks due to a spate of injuries. 

"Lungi (Jacob Sorensen) is hopefully back in team training next week. Grant (Hanley) is not far away, and we are quite confident he will be back the week after, so the one or other player is coming back, which we really, really need if you see the players we have available at the moment," Wagner said. 

"This makes it more important to get players back, and the ones who have played more minutes get the chance to recover as well."