Alex Neil admits Norwich City's League Cup hitmen have turned up the heat on Cameron Jerome.

Jerome is currently the man in possession in top-flight combat, but Kyle Lafferty scored his first goal for the club since January in the midweek 3-0 cup romp over West Brom. Dieumerci Mbokani and Lewis Grabban were also prominent in an experimental partnership that left Neil with a serious selection headache ahead of this weekend's league trip to West Ham.

'I have a few difficult decisions,' he said. 'That competition is exactly what you want. I want it to become difficult because whatever way you look at it you are going to be leaving out one or two very good players. I was delighted for Kyle that he got his goal and Dieumerci had a great chance just before he came off, but for the two of them to score would have probably been asking too much.'

Grabban pressed his case following a return to the starting line-up after suspension.

'He is desperate to do well. They all are,' said Neil. 'It shows the spirit we have in the group. What you tend to find is the lads playing regularly are all pleased and the other lads are less so, but I felt those not featuring regularly showed what it meant to play for Norwich. I tried him in the 10 role because he generally likes to drop deeper anyway in the number nine, but if we don't get a lot of runners off him when he is the main striker then we can vacate that area of the pitch. I thought if we put Mbokani up top then Lewis could play off him and hopefully the way the game developed they would become a two at times.'