Alex Neil believes today was Norwich City’s best away performance since he took charge of the club and claims he was as happy with the display in the goalless first half as he was with the second when they scored three goals.

The Canaries won 3-0 today to leapfrog opponents Watford into fifth place and move within four points of the automatic promotion places.

Neil has worked wonders since he took charge of Norwich on January 9, winning six of their eight games, including an away victory at Bournemouth in his first game in charge.

The Scotsman, who joined from Hamilton Academical, has already proved himself to be tactically astute and today set his team up to nullify a Watford side who had scored 19 goals in their previous six matches.

The Hornets only created a handful of openings today and did not stretch England goalkeeper John Ruddy throughout the 90 minutes.

Neil said: “In terms of away performances then it was the best away performance since I came here because of the way we stifled a good side; Watford are a very good side at this level and we knew any team coming here would have a game on their hands.

“So the fact we were able to play that way against a good team was really pleasing.”

He added: “When you are playing the top teams, particularly when you are playing away from home, you try to keep a clean sheet and if you can nick something then great. If you try to be too expansive then you can cause yourself problems. You particularly can’t do that against teams like Watford who have a lot of goals in their team.

“We limited them to very little which was great from us defensively and then we had the quality in attack to pick them off.”

Neither team were able to pose the opposition many problems in the final third during a cagey first hour. The spells of possession were few and far between but with Norwich the visitors, it is understandable why Neil was happier than his opposite number Slavisa Jokanovic.

Alex Tettey played in front of the back four and acted as a superb shield for his centre backs, who coped with the Golden Boys’ long balls forward, which arguably happened far too often.

Neil explained: “I was as pleased with the first half as I was with the second half, although from a spectator point of view I can see why they wouldn’t have been.

“Watford are a free-flowing footballing team and we made sure we came here and stifled what they were good at in the first half and frustrated them. We hoped they would come out in the second half and try to be expansive and that would leave gaps for us to exploit and that is exactly what happened.”

Today was the first time Neil has played with two strikers since he took charge at Carrow Road and he explained that was due to the Hornets’ 3-5-2 formation, which is rarely used in English football.

He introduced Wes Hoolahan and Cameron Jerome into his starting XI and the decision paid off with the prior diving for the penalty which proved to be the catalyst for their win and the latter scoring an impressive second goal.

Neil said: “I’ve got to try to make sure that I’m fielding a team that suits the game. I felt today with Wes’ trickery in that area [behind the strikers] and with Cameron up top with his power and strength they would cause Watford problems. Thankfully for me, that was the case. But ultimately it’s about the guys performing on the pitch and the two lads who came in who didn’t feature in the previous match did themselves justice today. They were excellent.”

Both Neil and Jokanovic said their view for the game-changing penalty decision was blocked – unlike half of the stadium who could see Hoolahan took a dive.

Neil said: “It was difficult to see from where I was because of all the bodies when Wes was running through. Wes has such quick feet when he is dancing through and I would need to see it again on video to see if it was a penalty. The referee was a lot closer than I was and he thought it was a penalty.”

You can read Jokanovic's views on the game here.