Norwich City manager Alex Neil insists the Canaries now control their Championship destiny.

City completed a league double over Ipswich Town at Carrow Road to move within three points of current leaders Derby County and one point behind Middlesbrough in the second automatic promotion spot.

With both due to visit Norfolk before the end of the season, Neil feels his squad no longer have to rely on favours and slip ups if they maintain their winning surge.

'We needed teams to do us favours and drop points when I first came in, whereas now we've managed to put it in our own hands because we have Middlesbrough and Derby at home and if we win those games then we control our destiny,' he said. 'That is probably the most pleasing thing for us because that wasn't the case before. It is about continuing to work as hard as we have done and keep our momentum going.

'We're third at the moment and the thing we have done by being on such a good run is to give ourselves a chance to potentially finish in those automatic spots, but that is all it is, an opportunity and a chance and we have to go and grasp it.'

City's winning six-game run under Neil has been built on a defence which has kept four clean sheets in that spell.

'When I first came in I made it clear I wanted to try and get that solid foundation and build from that,' he said. 'If you don't keep clean sheets and you don't defend well enough then you put a lot of pressure on forward players to get the goals. The one thing we have tried to do is be solid and the consistency in selection at the back has been crucial but more importantly than that the performance levels have been very good. They were excellent against Ipswich apart from one opportunity when they could and should have scored and big John (Ruddy) did great.'