Alex Neil still suitable to take Norwich back to the Premier League – but the players have also let him down

WHETHER Alex Neil’s Norwich tenure is actually hanging by a thread or whether it’s just wishful thinking on the part of sizeable swathes of the Yellow Army is, for now at least, an unknown.

But what is clear is that City’s manager has been badly let down by some of his players.

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Yet, regardless of whether or not he’s been thrown under the bus by those who should know better, the focus has inevitably turned to Neil.

Questions regarding his suitability to take this City squad back to the Premier League were already bubbling beneath the surface, but last Saturday’s 5-0 hammering by promotion rivals Brighton was a trigger for the blue touch paper to be lit in the vicinity of the brown stuff and a fan.

The fallout from the Amex has been vociferous and toxic, the air thick with recriminations, at its core the relationship between Neil and his senior players.

Suggestions of a behind the scenes fallout were given further credence when, post-Amex, an ashen-faced Russell Martin offered no excuses other than to declare that some of his colleagues had opted for white flags instead of resistance and grit.

There have been problems afoot for Neil for some time, problems that a decent start to the season served to placate, but a winless run of games – all of which were typified by an alarming lack of mental strength – have blown the lid on what has gradually morphed into a powder keg of a football club.

At its root is a failure to overhaul the City squad in the summer.

Relegation was painful but presented an ideal opportunity to refresh a squad that had suffered PL relegation twice in the space of three seasons but to do so relied on shifting some big earners – those who would raise seven and eight figure sums.

And it didn’t happen. Proposed moves away from Carrow Road for Robbie Brady and Steven Naismith, amongst others, came to nothing and City were left with said big earners on the books, some of whom have shown barely disguised indifference to a prolonged stay in Norfolk.

City’s overall performances have reflected as much, with early season wins often the result of limited opposition, but against top-half-of-the-table opponents they have been rumbled and the previously suppressed unrest, both on and off the field, has spilled over.

Neil’s tenure now hinges on four key factors:-

• Can he reclaim a fractured dressing room that’s rapidly disappearing from his grasp?
• Is he able to salvage and reinvigorate the minds of those whose thoughts are elsewhere?
• Can he restore the faith and trust of the Norwich City faithful by displaying a tactical awareness that, hitherto, has gone missing from his armoury?
• Can he find an XI that can rediscover the winning habit?

Only by achieving all of the above can he retain any genuine hope of seeing in 2017 as City manager, and it needs to start on Saturday against Leeds. A failure to win accompanied by further signs of players downing tools and it will only end one way.