Alex Neil is certain Norwich City's scare against Cardiff City will help them avoid another late panic tomorrow night.

The Canaries were 2-0 up and cruising on Saturday before Anthony Pilkington's 86th-minute strike set up a nervy finale at Carrow Road. Even Josh Murphy's stunner failed to put the game to bed, with the Bluebirds' former City winger completing his brace in injury time to keep the visitors' hopes of snatching a point alive.

Neil was a relieved man come the final whistle and believes his troops will have learned their lesson ahead of their showdown with Wigan Athletic.

'I told the players: 'Talk about making it difficult for yourselves,' said City's manager, who saw Cameron Jerome and Russell Martin net his side's other goals.

'We're really, really comfortable and everybody was going to go home thinking 'nice comfortable win, excellent, let's crack on for Tuesday'. But I think sometimes when you're at the top end of the table, as we are at the moment, then maybe having that sort of slight scare keeps you on your toes.

'It might not be such a bad thing come Tuesday because certainly looking at in the last five minutes there's no room for us to be complacent at all so maybe it might be a good thing.'

Robbie Brady looks set to miss the arrival of the Latics having limped off early in the first half with a hip problem. But Neil doesn't expect the Republic of Ireland international to be sidelined for long.

He added: 'To be honest it didn't look that bad at the time. I think it's more of a dead leg. But it's maybe hit a nerve which might be the complication and is why he had to come off.

'Unfortunately I was wanting to have Martin (Olsson) and Robbie back as quickly as we could. I don't think it's going to be anything long term but I think he'll certainly miss out in the week.'