Norwich City face Brentford this afternoon with the hosts certain to be looking to avenge the 5-0 drubbing they received at Carrow Road at the start of December.
Head coach, Dean Smith described his team’s performance that day as ’embarrassing’ and the final dagger in the heart was a first Norwich goal for the Bees’ old hero, Alex Pritchard to make it 5-0 late on.
Pritchard hasn’t played much since, despite giving an individual virtuoso performance that day as Alex Neil has tinkered with his team. It’s a team that hasn’t played consistently well all season and now, it’s stuttering along and hardly helping Neil’s job prospects – or it would be if he wasn’t practically unsackable.
TEAM NEWS
BRENTFORD
Winger Sully Kaikai is pushing for a start after scoring twice on Boxing Day, while Josh McEachran is also a potential starter.
NORWICH
Graham Dorrans suffered a medial knee ligament injury at Reading and will be out for several weeks. Jonny Howson is suspended and Youssouf Mulumbu is on the verge of heading off to the African Cup Of Nations, fingers crossed he’s available for this one.
Louis Thompson is still out while Matt Jarvis continues his return to fitness.
WHAT TO EXPECT
Norwich are desperately short on confidence, no matter what Alex Neil tries. The home side will be hoping to avenge that 5-0 defeat and the crowd will want to see some payback as well as a totally different performance from that which they saw at Carrow Road.
Scott Hogan still looked a threat in that game and will most likely be their major threat here. The rumoured fall out between Neil and Timm Klose sees our best defender benched and a baffoon in his place in the form of Seb Bassong. I despair of it all and honestly wouldn’t be surprised if we lost this game.
It will be totally different from the last match and with our rocky run of form and the Bees’ home advantage, it might be another ugly game for the Canary faithful.
Alex Neil said in his pre-match presser at Colney that the next two games are the most important of his career. Has he been warned that he’s got two games to save his job?
The way things happen at Norwich, probably not but you never know.
In any case, anything less than a win will not be acceptable, such is the state we are in.
OTBC
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