Alex Neil is under no illusions Norwich City must buck up their ideas after a Championship week to forget.

Preston inflicted a first home league defeat of the campaign, just days after blowing a chance to pick up the Canaries' first win at Fulham since 1986.

'It is never going to be plain sailing the whole season,' he said. 'To lose and not perform is a real blow for us and arguably we didn't deserve to win this game. Whether we deserved to lose is a matter of opinion. We have to respond off the back of this. If we have any guts or any bottle about us we will bounce back and I have no issues on that score. They are an honest bunch of players. I will demand they perform a lot better in the next game and they will demand that of themselves. It's fair to say I am unhappy about the last two games or to be accurate a game-and-a-half because we got ourselves into a great position at Fulham.'

Preston's suffocating approach paid dividends.

'They didn't dominate the game, if you look at the possession we had the bulk of the ball but that means nothing unless you do something with it,' he said. 'What they did do was they made themselves resilient. When they had to clear their lines they did so and they worked hard for each other and fought for each other. That shouldn't be enough to stop us performing.

'I wouldn't say they did a job on us. They were diligent in their shape and full credit to them. I have no complaints about the way they went about it but I am looking at my team and how we can be better.'