Gabby Sara needs to step on the gas after his long-awaited Championship start for Norwich City.

The Brazilian earned his spot for the weekend’s hard-fought 1-1 draw against West Brom, but found it tough going before he was replaced in the second half.

The 23-year-old had to bide his time when he arrived from Sao Paulo in the summer, due to a recovery from an ankle injury, in a deal which potentially could rise to a club record fee.

His head coach, Dean Smith, admitted it was hard going against the streetwise Baggies, but wants Sara to kick on the other side of the international break.

“I thought it was tough for him. I thought it was tough for all our midfielders,” he said. “I thought the only one bright spark in that game was AJ (Aaron Ramsey). He had a little bit of creativity, a little bit of awareness and made things look likely to happen. Other than that we didn’t create an awful lot.

“Gabby is a really good forward runner who can get up to players really well but it was hard for him to do that, apart from the one shot that hit the top of the bar.

"It was obviously difficult coming in with an injury. We had to assess where he was at and now we feel he's in a good place to play football games. We nursed him into it slowly just to find out where he was. But he's up to speed now, and that period has given him the opportunity to have a good look at what we do, and how we do it.”

City’s six-match winning league spell, prior to West Brom, afforded Smith the luxury to keep his marquee summer signing in reserve.

“It'd be easy to say because we had been winning games, there's less pressure on putting players in, but I could see from his face in training every time I named a team he wants to be in,” said Smith. “I have to pick what team I think is best equipped to go win a football game and it is then down to those other players tend to change my mind and get in the team.

"Gabby's working extremely hard. I was really pleased with him when he came on against Coventry and he got his assist against Bristol City. The same with Onel Hernandez. There's a really good competitive edge in training at the moment, which is good.

"And, you know, as we've said before, with some of the players coming back after the international period, the ones now in the team have to solidify those places.”