ALEX Neil is refusing to be distracted by the prize now well within Norwich City’s reach following their 2-0 win over Sheffield Wednesday on Easter Monday.

The Canaries swept into second place in the Sky Bet Championship thanks to Bradley Johnson’s first half brace against the Owls at Carrow Road.

Neil’s team occupy an automatic promotion spot with only five matches left of the regular season, but when speaking to Norwich City TV after the final whistle he called on everyone to remain tuned in to the job in hand.

“What we’ve got to do now is remain focussed and make sure we put as much effort into the games coming up as we have in the periods since I’ve been here,” he said.

“It’s like a snowball effect. It gets bigger and bigger with each game that passes by, but none of them come any bigger now than the game on Saturday.

“We’ve got to be determined. We’ve got to show how much it means and go about our business in the right manner, and I thought certainly in the first half (against Wednesday) we did that.”

City’s boss was happy with his side’s performance as they comfortably saw off the challenge of the Owls with a controlled and professional display.

“I thought we thoroughly deserved the points. In the first half in particular we were very good, and in the second half we had some good patterns of play without being over expansive,” he added.

“In the second half we played within ourselves, but we were comfortable in the match. We never really got posed any problems.

“We didn’t over-exert in the second half because we’ve got some really important game coming up. We’re going to need as much energy as we can probably muster.”

Johnson stole the headlines once more, taking his season’s tally of goals up to 13 with two that added to his match-winning strike against Brighton on Good Friday.

The influential midfielder will now miss City’s next two games, however, after picking up his tenth yellow card of the campaign in the second half.

“That’s the way it is. You don’t want to lose any of your best players, but he’s picked up his tenth booking today,” he commented.

“It is what it is, so what we need to do is make sure that someone else is going to get an opportunity. It’s then about them grasping it and coming in and showing an impact in the team.

“His header was fantastic. I didn’t think he’d be able to score because of the lack of pace on the ball, but he generated so much power.”

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