Could this be another big weekend in Norwich city’s quest to return to the Premier League?
I think it could well be.
As we all excitedly know, the Canaries currently sit ten points clear of second place in the Championship table and that’s even after last night’s Brentford win at Blackburn. Norwich don’t play until Sunday lunchtime which means that the chasing pack have an opportunity to put a little pressure on, if they win their games.
Brentford have already done that and Watford and Swansea play on Saturday with the Hornets in particular having a very tough looking game.
They have to travel to Mick McCarthy’s rejuvenated Cardiff with the Bluebirds having been transformed since big Mick took over from Neil Harris on 22nd January. In the eleven games since he took charge, Cardiff have won seven and drawn three, results which have taken them to the edge of the playoffs, making them genuine top six candidates.
By contrast, after a slightly shaky start to managerial life at Vicarage Road, Xisco Munez looks to have got things back on track with Watford having won four of their last five, their only loss in that period coming at Bournemouth.
This really is the big game of the weekend in the Championship. If the Bluebirds can beat the Hornets and Norwich can beat Sheffield Wednesday tomorrow then a 13 point gap over Brentford and Watford would open up. Swansea City travel to Luton, so comfortably beaten by Norwich last week, and on paper you’d think that the Swans should have that game in the bag but Luton, despite their performance last week, are very capable of winning games at this level and causing problems – as we well know.
There’s a lot of ifs and buts there though, so let’s get back to the Canaries and what we know from Daniel Farke’s Friday press conference.
The full team news update from today's pre-Sheffield Wednesday press conference ⬇
— Norwich City FC (@NorwichCityFC) March 12, 2021
Adam Idah is out with a hernia and Farke said that there is a small fear that he may need surgery, which would be a blow for a player whose season has been stop start and not quite exploded as we hoped it might. Ben Gibson hasn’t trained this week with hamstring trouble, so he is a doubt.
On the positive side of the fence, Orjan Nyland and Marco Stiepermann are both fit and ready so the competition for the number 10 position will now really hot up. Number 10 is the one position that hasn’t really been nailed down by anybody and the return of Marco “I was born to score goals” Stiepermann will be interesting to watch. We’ve had to wait for Nyland but it seems likely he will now be on the bench going forwards to support Tim Krul.
Other than that, the squad is fit and ready and a trip to Sheffield Wednesday looks the perfect game to take out points tally even higher. Last season, Leeds won the title with 91 points and Norwich currently have 76 points with eleven games remaining.
It’s looking good.
OTBC