Neil expects to remain at Norwich

Alex Neil said it is “likely” he will stay as Norwich City manager after a 3-0 defeat to Everton at Goodison Park brought their disappointing season to an end.

Goals from James McCarthy, Leighton Baines and Kevin Mirallas helped Everton inflict a ninth defeat in Norwich’s last 10 Premier League away games as the relegated visitors succumbed again.

The Norwich board has yet to indicate whether or not Neil will be retained as manager, but the 34-year-old Scot is confident he will still be at Carrow Road when they begin next season in the Championship.

He told The Pink ‘Un: “There have been brief discussions. I’ll have more tomorrow but it looks likely I will be here next season.

“I still have a few discussions to be had. It’s a big job because we have a number of players who have been here for a number of years for a start. We’ve got a team that is getting older – a lot of players 27, 28 and above.

“It is whether we deem we need to freshen it up and how much, and if we have got the resources available to us to do that.

“I think we have the basis of a squad because I don’t think you can have that much churn between two seasons,” he added.

“There might be some changes in the summer and it depends on what we can and can’t get done. I think we have got a lot of decisions to make. There is going to be a lot of discussions over these next few days. Then we’ll see wh
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Against Everton, Norwich showed little of the attacking flair and spirit that had earned them a 4-2 victory over Watford in their penultimate game, and Neil admitted his players had failed to deal with the likes of Everton striker Romelu Lukaku.

He said: “To be honest, the first goal pretty much summed us up this season.

“We had a good chance and Cameron (Jerome) has a header from seven or eight yards out. The keeper mops it up comfortably and 20 seconds later the ball ends up in the back of our net. Three or four occasions we could have stopped it getting to that point.

“It is a good strike from McCarthy but I think we have to look at how we defended it.

“We played some reasonable stuff without being overly threatening and when they went forward they looked decent at times. We couldn’t deal with Lukaku.”