Alex Neil revealed that Arsenal provided the basis for Norwich’s defeat of Swansea. Jonny Howson’s close-range, second-half header secured victory after the manager hadreorganised his team into a more defensive shape to attack on the counter.

Norwich allowed their visitors the majority of the possession – as Arsenal had done in their 3-0 away victory a week previously – to successfully end of a run of six games without a win but Neil also acknowledged that such negativity represented a risk in front of a home crowd when the Canaries were not hosting a top-four team.

“We watched Arsenal, obviously, and the first half they conceded possession and then they managed to hit them and hurt them on the counterattack,” he said. “I thought we did similar: first half our use of the ball wasn’t good enough, which meant we sat deeper and deeper, but as the second half wore on we were much more threatening going forward and it looked as if we could have scored more.

“The bottom line is, managing a club, you’re always going to be under pressure and, if it didn’t work and we lost the game, then I would have been heavily criticised, the team would have been heavily criticised and the tactics would have been rubbish. But that’s the facts of football, that’s the way football is.

“When you win, now it’s the perfect plan. That’s the thin lines and thin margins of football. What you’ve got to do as a manager is what you think’s right for your team to get the points, not what anybody else thinks. As soon as you’re doing that, you’re in the wrong job.”

Perhaps most concerning for the Swansea manager, Garry Monk, was that his usual game-changers – Gylfi Sigurdsson, Jefferson Montero, Jonjo Shelvey and Bafetimbi Gomis – were again ineffective. Monk refused to directly blame them for Swansea’s poor run – they have won only once since August – but said that the key to arresting decline comes in inspiring those previously so crucial to him in the final third.

“It goes hand in hand with the period we’re in,” he said. “We’re not as potent as we want at the moment, we’re arriving in those areas and we’re not quite making good use of them enough.

“That’s something for me to work with the players. They’re good enough, all of them. It’s about getting them sharper and righter and to create those chances, to take them.”