Opportunities for Norwich City's shadow squad to press their claims for Championship involvement will be up for grabs in the EFL Cup at Leeds tonight.

The Canaries head to Elland Road looking to earn a place in the quarter-finals, with experienced players such as John Ruddy and Steven Naismith likely to get a chance to impress.

'I think we've got a whole host of players who haven't been playing as much football as they would have liked and this is a good opportunity for some of them to come into the team, but also we want to win the game, so it's got to be strong,' City boss Alex Neil said.

'There's some other guys who have played some of the games recently who maybe need more games to get themselves up to tip-top shape as well.'

With a trip to promotion rivals Brighton on Saturday looming, as City try to shake off a surprise 1-0 home defeat to Preston in the league, Neil needs to strike the right balance in his selection.

The Championship remains the priority but the Canaries chief is confident cup progress can also be achieved.

'The cup's important to us, you've seen the team I put out and we went to Everton and managed to win 2-0,' he said. 'So the team that I'll put out is more than capable of winning the game if they perform well.

'I'm not going up there with an under-strength team by any means, we're going up there to try and win the game and then we've got an important game come the weekend as well.'

The match precedes Leeds making the trip to Carrow Road in the league a week on Saturday but Neil doubts the match will affect the November 5 clash.

'I think we could play Leeds every day for the next seven days and every game would be different,' he said. 'I think that's just the way that football is at Championship level because I think that the team you play against comes out with a manner and method with which they play and they give it their best shot.'