Match Zone

Norwich Suffer More Midfield Injury Woes Ahead Of Bolton

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Norwich City take on Bolton Wanderers this weekend, knowing that a win is required to get their automatic promotion challenge back on track.

A 3-1 defeat at the hands of Alex Neil’s Preston North End on Wednesday night saw the Canaries drop to second place in the league after wins for both Leeds and Sheffield United. Leeds regained top spot, while the most important stat, the points difference between us and the third-placed Blades was cut to just two points.

Talking to the assembled media up in the North West, where City have stayed since the Preston game and trained at AFC Fylde, Head Coach Daniel Farke gave a mixed injury update for his squad.

Alex Tettey will miss the game after picking up an ankle ligament injury at Deepdale. He is back in Norwich for a scan.

Marco Stiepermann and Emi Buendia have also both picked up “muscle injuries” and will be late decisions.

However, on the positive side, Moritz Leitner has trained with the squad and depending on the injury situation, Farke is thinking of bringing him back into the squad a week earlier than expected.

Timm Klose has been training well too and the boss says that big Timm is also in his thoughts for the trip to Bolton. Both players have been out for a while though, so it might be too much to expect that  either of them will start, Klose may be able to offer a late cameo if required, Farke said, but I get the impression that Leitner is closer to a longer appearance.

There was also an update on Louis Thompson and Carlton Morris. The plan is for Louis to rejoin the first team group for training in March although a little bit more time will be needed for Morris but both are progressing well.

Farke specifically mentioned Kenny McLean as a starting option and it would seem most likely to me that he will be the man to replace Tettey.

Farke also said that he felt the Preston game was lost in the first 20 minutes and that his side didn’t start quickly enough, unlike their opponents. After the 25 minute mark, City missed a penalty, scored once and had 22 shots at goal.

Bolton are in a relegation battle and will want to follow up an excellent away win at Birmingham in mid-week with a decent performance against Norwich. Farke expects them to be more set up for the counter-attack and that his side will have more of the ball. There will be pressure but City must handle this to get a positive result.

There was also a mention about penalties and how Marco Stiepermann had scored 25 in a row in training but that Farke has decided not to practice them anymore as “you can’t train this moment in a game.”

He says he needs to find someone who doesn’t think too much about taking them.

Farke also added a little bit about his own contract situation, saying that he doesn’t want to discuss it at the moment publicly, as he is focussed on this next game, which will be City’s third in six days.

After that? Maybe, but he says “no-one has to be concerned.”

OTBC

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Editor - a forty something Canary, who has been following Norwich for 30 odd years. Family man with wife, kids, dog and a love of sport. Fan of Boxing, Vale 46, F1 and Rock.

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