Angry Alex Neil admitted Norwich City have to get back to basics and quickly after a landmark 3-0 Championship away defeat at Birmingham City.

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A seething Neil spared no-one, least of all himself, from blame for a first away loss in the second tier under his command since arriving at the club.

The Canaries were punished for slack marking that allowed David Davis to open the scoring before Steven Whittaker conceded a clumsy penalty and Alex Tettey's weak back pass was pounced on by Clayton Donaldson to seal the Blues' first home win of the season.

'I don't write it off as a one-off,' said Neil. 'To be fair some of these lads have performed well for me in the past but I don't think they have done themselves justice. The one thing I will take away from it is I generally go stronger away from home, physically, and crowd the middle of the pitch and have men who want to fight and compete and battle.

'Today I probably went more expansive, in terms of giving us width with the two young boys wide and Wes (Hoolahan) as a ten and it didn't really work. We didn't do the basics, and I don't mean just those three, but the guys at the back, Alex (Tettey) in midfield, who is in there to scrap and fight. We lose a header at the back post for the first goal, which we should do better with, the second is a penalty, which is completely unnecessary and the third was gifted by us. That was a common theme.

'It is extremely frustrating to say the least. We had the odd opportunity but not enough and we didn't move the ball slickly enough. If you don't do the basics right, which is win your headers, win your tackles and pass to a team mate it is going to be difficult. We didn't do any of those three as well as we should have done.'

Neil confirmed after the game Cameron Jerome had barely trained all week with a leg injury that saw Steven Naismith deployed up top before Kyle Lafferty's second half arrival.

The Scot expects to complete the signing of Benfica's striker Nelson Oliveira within the next 24 hours, with the transfer window deadline next Wednesday.