Norwich City manager Alex Neil has insisted that Ian Holloway's return to Queens Park Rangers will have 'no effect' on his players as the two sides prepare to face off in the Championship this afternoon.
Holloway replaced Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink as Hoops boss over the international break, reuniting him with a club where he previously spent five years as a player and five as a manager.
Ahead of his first game back at Loftus Road, Holloway has called upon fans to make the ground a "scary" place for opponents, but Neil says that he will be unfazed by the heightened atmosphere.
"He deems it as his club, he was there for 10 years and he wants to try and rally everybody, which is normal," Neil told reporters at his pre-match press conference. "I don't think that's going to have any effect [on us].
"The one thing that will happen is players who maybe didn't get an opportunity before he was there will deem that they've got a chance now. Players whose position they would have thought would have been relatively safe under the previous regime may be thinking that they need to prove their worth. It's funny how players then apply themselves in that scenario because you would like to think that up to that stage they should be giving 100% but for some reason that seems to change.
"I believe that our performance will determine how the game goes, that's what I honestly believe. If we play as well as we can then hopefully it should be a good afternoon."
The Canaries go into the game fifth in the Championship, looking to arrest a run of three straight defeats.
Neil Wilkes
