Maintaining belief has been the key to Norwich City’s remarkable Championship turnaround, according to Shane Duffy.

The Canaries defender has returned from injury to start in vital wins over Ipswich Town and Preston North End within a week, helping City become strong favourites in the race for play-off qualification.

They sank as low as 17th earlier in the campaign, with only a sensational run of form since the turn of the year keeping their promotion hopes alive.

Duffy has revealed that the key to success was retaining confidence throughout the difficult times, and backing their strong squad to deliver eventually.

“I think we believed the whole time,” he said. “At home we’re very strong, and the question mark from outside was probably whether we could get he away wins. We did that (against Preston).

“Obviously we’re disappointed with Tuesday (when they drew with relegation-threatened Sheffield Wednesday having led 2-0), because we probably should have had the three points.

“But we’ve got two home games, and not many teams will want to come to our place now, they way we’re playing. It’s in our hands, and we have to finish the job off.”

Head coach David Wagner also deserves credit, says the Irishman, for keeping his men motivated even when the going got tough.

“We were saying it at the time, in November,” he continued. “It’s a really good dressing room, really good characters, and we were disappointed.

“There were a few words said at the right time, and it wasn’t pretty. We weren’t enjoying it, we were losing and we weren’t playing well.

“But we always believed that we had the right way of playing, and that with the players in this squad we could turn it around. A lot of players in that changing room know that anything can happen in the Championship.

“We just always stuck together. The manager’s been great, he never got too high or too low, he kept rallying us.

“It’s just one of those things, you just keep believing. I always look at our squad and think we should be near the top end of the league.

“Now we’ve actually put it onto the pitch, and sort of let the actions say the words. I’m delighted that we’ve turned it around, and hopefully we can finish it off.”