"Nathan is young and I just think why would he want to go anywhere else when he is playing games here?" Neil was quoted as saying by the Eastern Daily Press.
"If he gets to the stage where he needs to move on to further himself then I am sure that will come, but at the present moment this is the best place for him.
"There is no reason for him to go anywhere else."
Neil said influential midfielder Wes Hoolahan was unhappy to be substituted against Sunderland after providing two assists, but added that the 33-year-old would need to be carefully managed this season.
"The previous week he played the full match, so it is not a question about his workload," Neil said.
"He wanted to stay on... but the main reason I took him off was that we were 3-0 up at that stage, so we wanted to preserve what we had but I also had an eye on Stoke as well.
"Wes is 33 and if you demand the maximum from him every game then eventually it will catch up with him. It was a wee bit of self-preservation as well as solidifying the team."
(Reporting by Simon Jennings in Bengaluru; editing by Sudipto Ganguly)
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