Philippe Clement rates Matej Jurasek but until he is ‘top fit’ the Norwich City attacker will not show Canaries fans why the club shelled out £6m for him.

The 22-year-old was embarrassingly substituted 15 minutes or so after he himself was introduced, in the closing stages of Tuesday’s 1-1 Championship draw against Oxford.

Clement cited a ‘lack of energy’ from a player who missed his debut defeat at Birmingham due to illness.

Jurasek’s stop start City career has been blighted by fitness-related concerns and struggles to adapt to English football.

“I know him from before. I know he’s a lot of quality,” said new boss Clement. “It’s now our job with all the staff to get him to his best level and to get him top fit, to show the football that he can play.

“I need to make big decisions already with not knowing everything. I told you guys Matej was sick last week, so he trained the last two days, and he did well in the training sessions, maybe he forced himself also there for me to use him in this game.

“He didn’t have enough energy to do the job, offensively and defensively. I needed to make a decision for that moment. And that’s nothing, something personal with Matej. I know he wants to do everything really well, but maybe it was a little bit too early to bring him on. That’s on me.”

Norwich’s collective fitness has been questioned by sporting director Ben Knapper recently, and Oxford pounced in the 95th minute at Carrow Road with the Canaries sinking deeper and deeper in the final stages.

“I don’t want to repeat it every time. The list of players who are not available, players who are coming out of injury who are not top fit yet, and not at the level that I want. So that takes a part in in the moment we are now in ,” said Clement. “But I think one week ago everybody would have signed for this kind of game, not for the result, but for this kind of game.

“Everybody would have signed for that. Let’s continue getting the best out of all the players, and to push every ounce of energy out of them and to make them better and to let them grow individually but also collectively. And that’s the positive.

“All Norwich fans saw a team that played in moments good football and created enough chances and the kind of football they want to see.

“I’m a winner. I want to win every game. That’s my ambition. Every time we don’t win, I’m disappointed, but it’s a double feeling. I see it’s the seventh day in the building, and I see that everybody’s really engaged to make the story better. I speak about staff, but also about players. I saw better structure than against Birmingham. I saw better chance creation, and I saw a team that deserved to win.

“They gave everything, they tried their best. There’s still a lot of things to improve and details to be made better, but we’re going to work on that in the next weeks, next months, same with making players fitter and better.

“I cannot ask more for the moment. You need that little bit of luck. We had enough chances to score the second or third goal, and you kill off the game. Then one ball drops in between our players and you concede the goal. So that’s hard, but the team needs to continue showing the resilience that they did in this game.”