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Best yet to come, insists Alex Neil after Norwich City beat Burton 3-1 to go top of the Championship
Ivo Pinto is mobbed by his Norwich City team mates after sealing a 3-1 Championship win against Burton. Picture by Paul Chesterton/Focus Images Ltd - Credit: Paul Chesterton/Focus Images Ltd
Alex Neil insists the rest of the Championship should be wary of a resurgent Norwich City after beating Burton 3-1 at Carrow Road on Saturday to go top of the early standings.
City could even afford to miss a second consecutive penalty, when Robbie Brady was denied by Jon McLaughlin, but goals from Martin Olsson, Jacob Murphy's deflected strike and Ivo Pinto's first goal in professional football sealed a fifth win on the spin in all competitions.
Burton had briefly drawn level through Lucas Akins immediately after half-time but the Brewers' prospects of salvaging a point were hit by Tom Flanagan's second yellow card for handling Graham Dorrans' shot.
'There is more to come,' pledged Neil. 'I think we played well against Bristol City and Nottingham Forest in the second half but Burnley, last year, won 1-0 about 12 times. There is something to be said for that strength in depth and making sure you have enough to see yourself over the line. Is there more to come? I think there is but that bodes well for us because we are certainly doing enough to win the games. When we perform as well as we can we will be a real handful for anyone in this league.
'You have to treat games like this one in isolation. Everyone expects us just to turn up and beat them quite comfortably but Burton have beaten Derby and Sheffield Wednesday and the only games they had lost before this one were by a one goal margin.'
Neil admitted Nigel Clough's battlers were the latest side to produce a few nervy moments at Carrow Road this season.
'I think we deserved to win. We created a lot of opportunities to win the game but Burton made us work hard to win it,' he said. 'To be fair to them they played well at certain spells but we were the better side and when the game opened up we picked them off on quite a few occasions and should have scored more. I told the boys, 'we have not played that well,' and satisfied is probably the word.
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'You have no right to win any game. First port of call is to do that. So we are satisfied about that. Performance-wise I thought we had some good ones but as a team collectively we can do better. You would like to score the penalty to put it to bed earlier and to concede right after half-time was extremely disappointing. There are good bits and areas we can improve on.'
