Norwich City have to get down and dirty to gatecrash the Championship play-off picture.

Alex Neil hailed the battling 3-1 win over Paul Lambert's Wolves as a breakthrough moment but ahead of Birmingham's weekend visit Neil knows that must be the norm over the run-in.

'That is something we have lacked,' he said. 'We have played teams who I don't think have got better players than us but they have had that desire and willingness to scrap, head and lump things and made it difficult. We have not really matched that and I felt against Wolves we matched that in every area.

'We won the battle and when you do that we have quality to go with it. Cameron (Jerome) showed a fantastic technique when he bent a shot that came back off a post. That is what we have got, providing we do the dirty side of it. I think I would call that into question and what we have been lacking is really rolling up our sleeves, winning headers, winning second balls and being physical.'

New Blues' boss Gianfranco Zola is looking for his first win since replacing Gary Rowett and Neil accepts it will take more than decent home form to prove the Canaries are on the up.

'I have to get it into the players so they understand what is required at this level. They are capable of playing at a higher level but to win games you have to do the dirty work and Wolves was a big step forward,' he said. 'Brentford, away, we really should have won, we had five golden opportunities and didn't take them. We then followed that up with a really good performance against Derby, then held a Premier League team at home and at Rotherham we have a man sent off early. I felt we would have beaten them, in my opinion, with 11 on the pitch. I don't think we have been poor for a length of time. We have shown signs of recovery in the last four or five weeks. We now have to follow it up against Birmingham to really confirm we have turned a corner and push on.'