Sunday 29 November 2015 23:09, UK
Alex Neil praised Lewis Grabban's performance after Norwich played out a 1-1 draw with Arsenal at Carrow Road
The Canaries fell behind to a Mesut Ozil strike dead on the half an hour mark but Grabban levelled the scores just before half-time to seal a point for the hosts.
It comes after a disappointing start to the season for the striker, who was suspended by the club following an altercation before of their Capital One Cup game with Rotherham in August.
However, both player and club seem to have put the past behind them and it certainly pleased the boss to watch his performance.
"I felt that Lewis has been a great player for me since I've been here," Neil said.
"There were some wee things that happened early in the season, but Lewis brings great things to the team. His retention of the ball was excellent. He showed his quality and was really pleased that he got his goal.
"I've got 21 or 22 players that I could put in the starting XI and would do a job for me but Lewis' performance was great today."
Neil was also pleased with his team's showing overall against the Gunners and believes they could even have gone on to win the game.
"In terms of clear cut opportunities, we certainly had them as good as Arsenal, if not a little bit better. When we conceded the first goal, I'm thinking we pushed that self destruct button again but to be fair to the players, they showed great character to get back into the game.
"When the first goal goes in, the players can start feeling a bit sorry for themselves or they can roll their sleeves up and get stuck in and I thought they did that.
"They showed good quality to get the goal back and then we had a fantastic chance right on half-time with Wes [Hoolahan].
"In the second half, we started a little bit slow and we invited Arsenal onto us but as the half wore on, we looked like the team that was threatening and who could nick the game."
Ahead of the game, Neil spoke about finding a balance in his side, and added that he was pleased to see this coming through on the field.
He said: "Today was all about getting the balance right. The balance at the start of the season where we played really good football but were not solid at the back, then we were getting solid at the back but not really creating going forward, and I think as the game wore on today both sides came through which was good.
"The one thing I always say to them is go and play, and we did, and I was really pleased for us."
