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Saturday, 10 December 2011
Barclays Premier League
Norwich v Newcastle, 15:00
Author: Thomas Rooney 07/12/2011
Norwich City and Newcastle United meet at Carrow Road on Saturday in what is set to be one of the more entertaining Premier League matches of the weekend.
It is simply a game that has a good look about it. Both teams like to play attractive football, both teams have more than one attacking threat and let’s face it, Carrow Road is often the host of some end to end encounters.
Focusing on the home side to begin with, it is fair to say that not much can be read into the 5-1 defeat to Manchester City last time out. Norwich were in a different league to Roberto Mancini’s men last season and in many ways they still are.
The fact that the Italian could introduce Adam Johnson, Mario Balloteli and Nigel De Jong during the second-half against the Canaries says a lot.
At the moment, Norwich simply cannot compete with this and despite the disappointment of conceding five, they won’t get too down about the weekend’s events.
It was much more important that Paul Lambert’s men picked up the three points against QPR the weekend before. The same applies to the game against Newcastle on Saturday.
Fair enough, the visitors have been in excellent form this year, but they have stuttered slightly of late and Norwich will fancy getting something from this one. With two tough away games coming up – against Everton and Wolves – this is definitely an important one for Norwich’s Christmas form.
Something in favour of the home side is that Newcastle are suffering somewhat of an injury crisis in terms of their defenders. Steven Taylor is out for the season, while his defensive partner Fabricio Coloccini is also a doubt for this weekend.
Considering the basis of Newcastle’s success has been a solid back-line – they have the fourth best defence in the Premier League – this is a real blow for them.
In terms of their defensive options for this weekend’s clash with Norwich, they are likely to be without Mike Williamson who is recovering from a broken arm, meaning that full-backs James Perch and Danny Simpson are set to take up a more central role.
This is of course something Norwich will look to exploit and could even tempt them into partnering Grant Holt with Steve Morison up front after the latter has lead the line on his own in recent weeks.
Newcastle have a point to prove here though. Pardew has recently mentioned the difficult run of fixtures his team have had – they have faced Manchester City, Manchester United and Chelsea recently – and this is the start of a run against teams in the lower parts of the Premier League.
After this game at Carrow Road, the Magpies face Swansea City, West Brom and Bolton and this spell could go a long way to deciding on their ambitions for the season. They will want to pick up plenty of points between now and Christmas.
Whether they come away with three this weekend though remains to be seen. Norwich are a decent side and on home soil they will look to pick up a positive result against the likes of Newcastle.
An entertaining 1-1 draw appears to be a fair prediction for this one.
Football betting tip: Draw @ 23/10 with Bet365 - (£200 extra on your deposit)
Correct score prediction: Norwich 1:1 Newcastle @ 7.2 with Betfair
Watch our Football Video Podcast on the Norwich v Newcastle match by Thomas Rooney and Pete South including their predictions.