Patience is not a virtue as far as Andrew Omobamidele is concerned.

A deadline day transfer in September saw the Ireland defender leave Norwich City for Nottingham Forest for €12.5m but he is still waiting for his Forest debut.

In one of his last acts as Ireland boss, Stephen Kenny gave Omobamidele the full 90 minutes in Tuesday's draw with New Zealand but it showed that the Kildare man had not played competitively since a League Cup for Norwich on August 29.

"I definitely needed it," he said.

READ MORE: Stephen Kenny says nothing will top managing his country

"I know there is a process but I feel it’s not good, it’s easy to go on about 'your time is coming'.

"But I don't think patience is a good trait in football to have, personally. I feel like you always need to want to play, you should be thinking of yourself about being better or playing in this position or whatever it is.

"See, I get told to be patient a lot by family members and stuff like that but I think there's a difference between patience and complacency, I never want to get into the position where I'm not playing and I'm happy where I am.

"No, that's not what I want to do, I want to play and to establish myself in the Premier League and in international football. Like I said, once my chance comes I'll be ready to take it."

Omobamidele knows that he needs to play regularly at club level to be a feature in the Ireland team under Kenny's successor.

“Of course, that’s the only way the manager can judge your form," said the 21-year-old. "If you’re not playing for your club, it’s very difficult to put you in for a big game in the qualifiers.

"Personally I think I’m close. It's a matter of time, I think.

"There was a lot of talks around a move and I just felt like at that stage I wanted to test myself again, like I am now.

"I'm fighting every day to try to get into the team, this is the kind of position I want to be in. I don't want to be complacent or feel comfortable, I want to test myself and I'm being tested at the moment.

"It's up for me to answer those questions.

"I just need to keep doing what I’m doing, just try and do well and keep fighting. We all know football is not easy. I’m happy today I got a runout, got it into my legs and go back to Forest now this week and just keep going again.

“There's a process to everything. Recruitments and stuff, ins and outs and that, so yeah, I’m just trying to control the controllables at the moment which for me is when my opportunity comes just take it and obviously in the training ground every day I give 100% and the rest is out of my control."

Mentality is key now for a player who has seen impressive progress for club and country badly hampered by injury.

“It’s massive, obviously," Omobamidele said. "Especially at my age and in my position, it’s all about experience and games and game time.

"It’s all about mentality because there are days that you go in and you don’t know if you’re going to get your chance so it’s easy to go ‘look, I’m just going to train half today because I know I’m not going to play at the weekend’.

"But you can’t be like that because when you’re like that you never know you might be playing and you’re not ready. You just need to be ready every week."

Like the rest of the Ireland players that Kenny brought through, Omobamidele is sad for the manager as his time at international level has reached the end.

"Personally I think the boys have been amazing, I feel like the group has shifted the culture of how it was back then," he said. "Like, I grew up watching Ireland teams.

"The manager's been massive. That point where he had the faith to bring me on against Portugal, that lit the fire in my early career stage, that's when everything started to fall into place for me. I owe him a massive debt for that.

"I will be forever grateful for that and the faith he continued to show me after that.

"With the lack of minutes I am getting with the club now, it'd be easy to throw in other people who are playing and I'd understand that but he continued to show faith in me. He's been amazing for my international career.

"And I know it's a results-driven business, we all know that, but I think there is a process."

Omobamidele feels that luck hasn't been on the side of Kenny's Kids in games - but acknowledges performances haven't cut it, either.

"Looking at the squad we have, there's going to be a stage that it clicks," he argued.

"I know we say 'be patient with us' but I know it's about results and performances as well, we just need to keep doing what we're doing.

"It's not like it's a lack of workrate from the boys, the boys are 100%, the passion is 100%, we go into camp every time the feeling of all the boys in playing for the country is there.

"Boys like myself on six or seven camps or James McClean on over 100, it's the same throughout the squad, it's only a matter of time before it clicks."

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