Norwich City have the young guns to steal Nathan Redmond's thunder ahead of his FA Cup return with Southampton.

Redmond was the highest profile casualty following the club's relegation from the Premier League, when he sealed a reported £11m move to the Saints last summer, but Alex Neil does not want the 22-year-old to dump his old club out of the cup at the first hurdle on Saturday at Carrow Road.

'I hope the headline is one of our younger lads scoring the winning goal, not Nathan,' he said. 'Look at Everton in the League Cup, Josh (Murphy) did it there, Jacob has done it on numerous occasions for us this season. The emergence of those two has certainly made up for the loss of Nathan. Listen, I have spoken to Nathan on a couple of occasions since he left. He has sent me a few texts and I got on really well with him here. I felt I helped his game and helped him to improve a lot in the period I was here and obviously we managed to get him his move. Nathan is a Premier League player and I think he will go on to get better and better. While Nathan was here he was one who could dictate a game and create something out of nothing. Those type of players are a bit special and he is one of those.'

Redmond has been a regular at St Mary's since his big-money switch and even spearheaded the Saints' frontline earlier this season.

'The one thing when I first came in was Nathan stood on the touchline and he had to add that to his game, drifting in from the flank and playing in those pockets,' said Neil. 'More importantly he started to see a dramatic rise in his statistics, in terms of assists and goals. Nathan's quality is such he can play anywhere across the frontline.

'I always think with young players it is difficult to be that influence every week because they do not have the games or experience. The best example I can probably give is Wes Hoolahan, who is an influence in the majority of our home games. He is experienced and he knows which areas he can have an impact.'