Norwich City vs Spurs e-Football Preview

Article by e-Norwich Correspondent Colin Rowe

Follow e-Norwich on Twitter!

Hovering just one point and two places above the relegation zone, Norwich will face a tough home fixture on Sunday against a Tottenham side looking to close the gap on the top-four and strengthen its grip on fifth place.

Following a disappointing defeat to West Ham last week, the news surrounding Carrow Road has focused mainly on the strong language used by Chief Executive David McNally with regard to Chris Hughton’s future at the club.

Essentially, McNally’s argument came down to the fact he was keeping tabs on possible replacements for Hughton if Norwich crossed his earlier-imposed ‘Red Line’ of slipping into the bottom three.



Howson to return?

Even former Norwich players have weighed-in with Danny Mills saying sacking Hughton would be counter-productive and Darren Eadie claiming even if he sees out the season and keeps Norwich up he will be replaced over the summer.

This, naturally, led to plenty of speculation about how long Hughton has to turn things around and who could replace him, with suggestions ranging from the obvious (Malky Mackay) and the ambitious (Neil Lennon) to the frankly ridiculous (Rene Meulensteen).

On a related topic, it is worth mentioning an article in the Scottish Herald on Wednesday, which pointed out if Lennon headed south-of-the-border, Norwich would likely have to pay up to £1 million compensation to buy out his contract.

Those who are aware of how McNally operates would assume he does have a replacement at least in mind, if not lined-up, with the former Cardiff and current Celtic managers the bookies favourites, although you can also get 100/1 on Diego Maradona.

Regardless of whoever could take-over the Norwich hot-seat, Hughton will be the man in the dug-out come 4pm on Sunday and he will defiantly be motivated to get something out of a game against a side in a good run-of-form and it can only be hoped the talk of potential replacements will fire-up both the management and the players.

The reverse fixture earlier in the season was certainly a low point for the Yellows with an abject display leading to a 2-0 Spurs win, which could have quite easily been even more convincing if the Lilywhites had not realised at half-time they did not really need to turn up for the remaining 45 minutes to walk away with three points.

However, Norwich do have a half-decent record against Spurs with two league draws and a league cup win against them in the 2012/13 season.

Both teams had a weekend off, having crashed out of the FA Cup to Fulham and Arsenal respectively, but Tottenham do have a trip to Ukraine to face former manager Juande Ramos’ Dnipro, with the home leg the following Thursday providing the bread in a Norwich sandwich.

In terms of any positive outlook for the Canary’s, these distractions for Spurs are as good as it gets and with a five point gap between the White Hart Lane outfit and sixth place Everton, maybe their minds will be focused on the Europa League fixtures rather than the league.

Longer-than-expected absentee Jonny Howson restarted full-training last week and could possibly make a return to the side, although a seat on the bench is most likely.

It will be a welcome return for Howson who was performing well before his injury and the Norwich fans will be hoping for a few more of his trademark bouncing half-volleys which somehow sneak into the bottom corner.

The 10-day break will hopefully have given centre-back Ryan Bennett and loanee midfielder Jonas Gutierrez the chance to recover from minor knocks, while Elliott Bennett is now the only obvious long-term injury worry.

Tactically this is a difficult game to call. Despite the score line, Norwich did not play badly against West Ham and featured a side with just one change from the fabulous goalless draw against Manchester City.

While another draw would certainly be a positive result, Tottenham are unlikely to dominate in the same way Manchester City are expected to so there will be chances for Norwich.

Expect Norwich to utilise a similar line-up to the West Ham game with just a solitary striker and similar tactics to those employed in the last home game, but do not expect a second striker to enter the fold unless Norwich fall behind.

The bigger question will be raised after the game if Norwich slip into the relegation zone, with the following weekend bringing a very different, but equally difficult fixture away at Aston Villa.

It would be harsh to sack Hughton if City get points at the weekend, but with so few games left the board might be forced to make a very tough decision about whether or not to roll the dice before the run of winnable games ahead of the nightmarish final four fixtures.

Predicted Starting XI – Ruddy, Martin, Yobo, Bassong, Olsson, Redmond, Tettey, Johnson, Fer, Snodgrass, Hooper

Substitutes – Bunn (GK), R Bennett, Whittaker, Pilkington, Howson, Hoolahan, van Wolfswinkel

© e-Football 2014 All rights reserved no part of this document or this website may be reproduced without consent of e-Football