Norwich have failed to reach the Premier League but James Maddison has caught the eye and it would be no surprise if the midfielder started next season at a top-flight club

James Maddison has a habit of producing the spectacular, so it is no surprise he exudes confidence. “I’ve always wanted to be a winner, the best player, the one that everyone is talking about,” he says. “I’m greedy in that sense.”

The 21-year-old, by his own admission, treads a fine line between confidence and arrogance but Norwich’s skilful midfielder need not apologise for savouring centre stage or relishing responsibility.

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“I like having the pressure on my shoulders,” Maddison says at the club’s training base, in between one of manager Daniel Farke’s notorious double sessions. “I think I have the right balance of believing in my own ability and having that confidence on the pitch, people watching you thinking: ‘He knows he’s a good player’ but without taking it to that level where it’s: ‘He’s an arrogant so-and-so.’”

Maddison’s form in a team who have underwhelmed has been so impressive it is scarcely believable this is his first full season in the Championship. His performances, which brought a call-up to the England Under-21 squad in November, mean it could yet prove to be his last.

Maddison smiles as he tells of how, a couple of weeks ago, he found himself rubbing shoulders with one of this season’s outstanding performers at the PFA awards in Mayfair. “We had Mo Salah on the table next to us,” he says. “I took my mum, a big Liverpool fan, with me and she was in awe of him, as was I to be honest. I was like: ‘Wow, there’s Mo Salah, there’s Marcos Alonso and David de Gea and all these Premier League footballers.’ But my dad said to me: ‘You’re here for a reason, you deserve to be here,’ being in the Championship team of the season.”

On match days being star struck is not an option. “We played Chelsea in the FA Cup, Eden Hazard comes on and you get the ball, turn and he’s there,” Maddison says. “You just try to turn and get past him. But after the game, I’m stood there and I ask him: ‘Eden can I have your shirt?’ When you’re on the pitch and you’re playing, it’s same old, you’re just playing against another human you’re trying to beat. But after, it’s Eden Hazard, Mo Salah, all these players. Especially for a younger player like me watching these guys in the Premier League every week, it’s nice to be in and around them.”

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Maddison glides with grace but there is a reason why his Norwich team-mate James Husband recently described him as a “weathered young boy”. On Sunday at Hillsborough Maddison will make his 113th appearance, primarily a result of being thrust into men’s football at Coventry, his boyhood club whom he joined after a successful trial just before his seventh birthday. Others have prospered via the same route: Ben Stevenson joined Wolves in January and George Thomas signed for Leicester last summer. This season, 19-year-old Tom Bayliss is making a name for himself at Coventry.

“You don’t get the access to under-19 Champions League tournaments and things like that but you get access to first-team men’s football from the age of 16 or 17, if deemed good enough by the manager,” Maddison says. “Thankfully Steven Pressley at the time threw me in at the deep end and I was on the bench at 16 – I was just a boy. I learnt so much at Coventry – I was playing as a regular at 17, most weeks. And that’s something that left me in good stead.” These days he considers himself a Coventry fan; it is the first result he checks.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Maddison takes on Danny Drinkwater and Pedro of Chelsea in January’s FA Cup tie at Stamford Bridge. Photograph: David Klein/Reuters

When his schedule allows, he gets back to the family home in the West Midlands, where “football’s always on the TV”. He credits his mother, Una, and father, Gary, for keeping him grounded and they attend every game along with his younger brother, Ben, who studies carpentry at college. “I’ve tried to teach him a bit and he’s my number one fan to be fair,” Maddison says. “He loves it, he comes to every game with his Norwich shirt, holds his scarf up and I hope to keep making him and my family proud because that’s the best achievement you can get in football.”

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One moment he will never forget was his international debut in Kiev at the end of last year before he started against Ukraine at Bramall Lane in March, alongside a friendly foe in Demarai Gray. “We grew up playing against each other, Birmingham v Coventry,” he says. “Demarai used to have an afro, so when we used to play Birmingham it used to be: ‘The lad with the afro is a good player.’ We must have been 12 or 13. And now the afro’s gone.”

Last season Maddison requested a loan in search of game time and moved to Aberdeen. It is easy to overlook the fact he joined Norwich in January 2016 because it is only now he has made a lasting impression, under Farke. “I didn’t just become this player that can make things happen in the summer,” he says, clicking his fingers. “It’s always been there, nothing’s changed but I just needed that chance.”

As a team, there is frustration at a campaign that has fallen short of an expected promotion challenge but it has been an extraordinary eight months individually for Maddison. “You should always want more,” he says. “If you get comfortable with what you have done, you can never go to that next level.”

After signing, he was asked in an interview what supporters could expect. Fast-forward almost two years and he can safely say he has delivered on his promise of getting fans out of their seats.