Alex Neil remained positive about his team’s performance and effort, following their 1-0 defeat against Arsenal this evening, leaving his Canaries sitting in 19th place with just three games to play.
Neil made five changes to the team which lost to Sunderland two weeks ago, with Ryan Bennett out ill and Andre Wisdom’s most recent injury, whilst Dieumerci Mbokani, Matt Jarvis and Steven Naismith settled for the bench in place of Cameron Jerome, Nathan Redmond and Wes Hoolahan.
The Canaries came close to breaking the dead-lock in the first half with Nathan Redmond testing Petr Cech multiple times, before Danny Welbeck came on as substitute and stole all three points just minutes after coming on for the Gunners.
Mbokani, Jarvis and Naismith all entered the fray in place of Hoolahan, Robbie Brady and Sebastien Bassong, during the second half of the match, but the Canaries were unable to grab a point by the full-time whistle.
Speaking to Norwich City TV following the game, Alex Neil praised his player’s effort during the 90 minutes and hoped a repetition in City’s final three games against Manchester United, Watford and Everton could see the Canaries pick up much-needed points.
He said:
I don’t think I could ask much more of the player’s today.
I thought they worked extremely hard. I thought they showed good work ethic, I thought their attitude was excellent and they showed some really good quality at times, and I thought we created some really good chances against a really tough team to play at home.
I don’t think we got what we deserved out of the game.
Neil also hinted at his team being able to prove people wrong in City’s chances in today’s game and subsequent fixtures, suggesting many thought the Canaries would “roll up and curl up and die”.
I think a lot of people were coming here today or even watching the game, questioning whether we have the bottle for the fight, or are we going to roll up and curl up and die, or go out there and see what we’re made of, and I think today the boys answered their questions.
I think they gave everything they could give and I couldn’t ask anything more of a group of players.All I ask of them is to make sure they go into the next three games with that type of effort and endeavour and quality, then I’ll be confident that we can pick up points.
When speaking of City’s missed chances in the first half, Neil believed it could have been a different game.
Sometimes [against teams like Arsenal their best isn’t good enough] but I think if we took one of our really good chances in the first half or even some of the ones in the second half, I think it might have been a different game.
On speaking about the goal, Neil criticised a five-minute lapse in quality for his team but insisted, apart from the goal, he couldn’t ask for much more.
I think it was only a five-minute spell where the game became really stretched that we didn’t want to happen but happened right before the goal.
Maybe we didn’t recover quick enough and get ourselves back into shape and they scored in that period, which was really disappointing.
But I think the response from the first minute to the end, I couldn’t have asked much more from them.
Neil also suffered criticism in his team choice with naming Cameron Jerome as the sole striker and naming a team similar to the one which defeated Middlesborough at Wembley last year.
I think the game suited Cameron. We tried to play counter attacking style. I think nobody would have said that when I played Mbokani and we picked up seven points out of nine before the Crystal Palace game.
The one thing everybody’s got is hindsight after the game – I would have done this, I would have done that – but I’ve got to get the player’s ready beforehand and hope they go out and perform the best they can.
Cameron and Wes have been a pair I’ve used probably more often than anybody else this season so I think they’ve played plenty of games.
In choosing to substitute Wes Hoolahan in the second half, Neil defended his decision to choose Dieumerci Mbokani to replace the Irishman.
There were two reasons. I thought Wes started to tire and when we starts to tire, he starts to drift out to the wide areas and hang out there hoping to get the ball on the counter attack.
I think when you’re playing against a team [like Arsenal] you need someone who’s going to get back in and work. I spoke to him after the game and he felt a bit fatigued as he hadn’t played in quite a few weeks.
I thought he played well up until that point but I thought we needed to change tactic and get a bit more direct and cause them more of a problem by playing two up-front.
In reaction to Newcastle’s three points against Crystal Palace and Sunderland’s last minute equaliser against Stoke, Neil insisted
I think we knew before today’s game that we need to win games to stay in the league. We’re disappointed we didn’t get something from today’s game but we’ve got two home games where we need to get as many points as we can.
It’s going to be tough but it’s a difference in one game. We won, they draw or loss and we jump ahead of them so I’ll be confident to say I don’t think Sunderland will win their remaining three games. If they do, they deserve to stay in the league.
We just have to make sure we take care of our own games.
