Alex Neil pulled no punches in his damning assessment of the Canaries' plight as Norwich City career towards the Championship.

City were again charitable at the back and weak up front in a 1-0 Premier League defeat to Manchester United which means they will be relegated on Wednesday if Sunderland beat Everton at home.

'The bottom line is it's not good enough,' he said. 'Let's not kid on. This was a damaging defeat. When you are hoping for other teams not to win you are in a bad state. When you are relying on other teams it is not a good place to be. We have two games remaining and we have to make sure we go and put in a good performance on Wednesday. I don't think you can just highlight one area for why we are in this position. We gift them a goal by a lapse in concentration and to be a team at this level and compete you have to limit those mistakes across the course of a season. You also have to score when the opportunities arise and you would have to say there are teams in and around us who are a bit better at doing that. You can talk about the goals but we were conceding quite a few earlier in the season so getting that balance right of being solid and threatening on the other side is difficult, particularly when you make mistakes.'

Neil's squad is now four points from safety after Sunderland came from behind twice to beat Chelsea 3-2 on Saturday to climb out of the relegation places at Newcastle's expense. The Magpies drew 0-0 at already-relegated Aston Villa but only have one game left at home to Tottenham on the final weekend. Norwich host Watford at Carrow Road in midweek before travelling to Everton but Neil was taking few positives from games against clubs with nothing to play for.

'No, I don't take any comfort from the fact we have two games against sides in mid-table,' he said.