Wes Hoolahan wants Republic of Ireland pal Robbie Brady to stay and help fire Norwich City back to the Premier League.

Brady has been widely touted with a Carrow Road exit this summer following his exploits at Euro 2016 alongside fellow Dubliner Hoolahan.

The former Manchester United trainee is back in contention after a thigh injury for Saturday's Championship home opener against Sheffield Wednesday and Hoolahan knows City's promotion prospects would be boosted by Brady staying with the Canaries.

'Of course I am desperate for him to stay. We know what Robbie can do and we saw that again at the Euros what a talent he is,' said Hoolahan. 'He is still only young with a lot to learn and you want to keep hold of your best players to give the club the best chance of going back up. Hopefully we can do that.

'The boys were buzzing after beating Blackburn. It was a great start to the season going away from home and scoring four goals. It was an accomplished performance and we hope to continue that against Sheffield Wednesday. If you go into every game focused and prepared to put in the hard work we hope the talent will then show through. The fans will have been looking forward to this game and we are up for it as well. We just want to put in a good performance and finish off where we left off last week.'

Hoolahan has been in sparkling form since his own return from France, with a goal and an assist in the Rovers' rout, but the 34-year-old knows there is a battle to stay in Alex Neil's starting line up.

'There is a lot of competition in that area of the field,' he said. 'Alex Pritchard is a quality player and training with him the last few days you can see he has a lot of talent. He has very good technical ability and he will be an asset for this club in trying to get promotion.

'Naisy (Steven Naismith) has a lot of quality, makes a lot of clever runs and you have seen what he did in the Premier League down the years at Everton. We are glad we have him in our team and (James) Maddison can play in there. It's great to have that, its pushes you in training and you can see the standard has gone up a notch.'

Hoolahan is well aware of the threat from Gary Hooper this weekend on his first competitive return with the Owls.

'Hopefully we can keep him quiet,' he said. 'Hoops' is a great forward who can score goals and his build up play is good as well. We know what he is all about. He scored some important goals for us in the Championship and we know what a threat he will be.'