Grant Hanley is closing in on a Norwich City fitness return David Wagner labelled an ‘absolutely mega boost’.

The Canaries’ head coach revealed after a 1-1 Championship draw at Coventry his club captain is on track to return to team training following a lengthy spell out following Achilles surgery.

Hanley has not featured since suffering the injury at Blackburn last Easter. Wagner also confirmed Marcelino Nunez is set to link up with Chile over this upcoming international period in a bid for game time, after picking up an ankle injury on his last trip to south America.

The midfielder's last City appearance came in the League Cup at Bristol City on August 29.

Borja Sainz and Jacob Sorensen could be in contention for Monday’s Premier League Cup trip to Charlton, as Wagner looks to get some of his injured senior players back in the mix for the next stage of the Championship season.

“Grant Hanley is close for team training, which is an absolutely mega boost for everyone,” said the German. “It looks like, touch wood, if everybody comes healthy back from the international break we will have some more options.

"Nacho (Nunez) will travel to Chile, because he was in training the last couple of days and we decided maybe he gets game time there, competitive game time, and for him psychologically to go back to Chile is quite important as well. Some will go with the under-21s on Monday as well, so it looks like we start to have some numbers back.

"Clearly if they are back in training it doesn’t mean automatically they are match fit, we have to work with them and we will do. Then we will see how everybody returns from the international break.”

Wagner again rotated his starting line up against the Sky Blues at the end of a congested spell of fixtures.

Jon Rowe’s first half strike looked to have secured the points until Ben Gibson’s 88th minute own goal.

“It was a fair result, even if we conceded so late,” said Wagner. “I was very pleased with how the players executed our idea to give Coventry a little bit of possession and make sure we defend from a lower block and be a threat on the transition. They put in real shift.

“Obviously, you have to defend your crosses, and you have to have some blocks, but they were no real big chances. We scored a great counter-press goal and had two further golden opportunities from Adam Idah and a third one from Liam Gibbs, where we have to kill the game.

"Especially in the second half, we had this period of 25 to 30 minutes where we were very comfortable on the ball, and we have to kill the game.”