Norwich City's squad is playing for their football future if you want the real reason behind the Canaries' Premier League revival, according to Alex Neil.

City's first top flight win in 11 games at West Brom silenced the doubters who had written off the Canaries and Neil believes the real credit should go to his troops for a timely turnaround.

'Sometimes when you get to the nitty gritty players snap into life on occasions and I have certainly sensed a different intensity to our squad in the past five or six games, the closer we get to the end,' he said. 'I can assure you they are absolutely desperate to stay in this league and they are fighting tooth and nail. I think that is the one benefit we have got over the teams in and around us is that I have a set of players who have never turned against each other. We have always been solid and chasing the one clear goal and we can take strength from that. You just get yourself to a stage where if you don't start winning now it is going to be too late and although we didn't pick up the points we would have liked recently you could see the urgency and the way they went about it and what it means.'

Norwich's upturn has pulled Crystal Palace firmly into the survival equation, with City five points behind the Eagles and still to travel to Selhurst Park.

'I think Palace have not won in 11 league or so now. They will be concerned about that and we still have them to play so the more we can drag into it the better,' said Neil. 'People talk about winning being a habit. Well losing can as well. I said it before the (West Brom) game if you look at Norwich two seasons ago they were five points clear at this stage and sometimes you can think things are going swimmingly and all of sudden you can find you are right in trouble and it is extremely difficult to turn that around.'