Daniel Farke has admitted Nelson Oliveira's future is uncertain at Norwich City but says the striker remains a part of his squad.

The Portugal international didn't feature again as the Canaries were beaten 1-0 at Charlton in their final friendly, concluding pre-season without a minute played.

It seems the 26-year-old is heading for exit door but City's head coach is not ready to publicly admit that Oliveira is leaving.

'No, I totally respect that Nelson is a part of our group and I totally respect that there is a contract and he respects that also,' Farke said when asked if an exit is imminent.

'He's together with us in our training group and he trained in really good shape. I can't predict the future but he was not so much involved in pre-season because we said we wanted to concentrate on the other strikers, especially to give Jordan Rhodes and Teemu Pukki game time. Also Dennis Srbeny, I think he scored a couple and was there with assists so at the moment they are a bit more on the front foot – but I can't predict what happens in the future.'

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While Farke was unable to shed any further light on potential loan exits for keeper Remi Matthews and long-serving defender Russell Martin, there was good news on the injury front ahead of Saturday's Championship opener at Birmingham.

'We have a big hope that Jordan Rhodes can return in midweek, we have to wait to see how it develops,' the German continued.

'Also probably Jamal Lewis and Ivo Pinto will be able to return to team training in the beginning of the week. Okay for them it will probably be too short term to involve them at Birmingham.

'Alex Tettey is back in individual training, a bit earlier than we expected, so everything is sorted with the chickenpox and also we expect him to be back in training in midweek, perhaps not on Monday or Tuesday but in the middle of the week I think he can return, so this is good news.

'So in general I hope that there is no further injuries and especially after this game we are there with no-one being guaranteed for a position in the team or even the squad because there is lots of competition. I will have to watch a bit more and I want to watch more in our training sessions to see who is really desperate and who is there with a fighting attitude and knows what is important for winning points.'