Norwich City welcome Southampton to Carrow Road for the first game of 2016 as they look to push on from an encouraging Christmas period. Two wins from the last three games, a massive win at Old Trafford and then a crucial victory over Villa have put City on the survival track – so far.
The 3-0 loss at Spurs, sandwiched between those two wins showed that City can still be frail when faced with top opposition.
Southampton have been in poor form of late and they sit just four points above City, although a recent 4-0 drubbing of Arsenal suggests that they can’t be treated lightly.
Norwich were well beaten, 3-0 at St. Mary’s earlier in the season after Steven Whittaker’s red card. This will be an interesting and equally important contest for both sides.
Vital Quotes:
Ronald Koeman:
“I was watching the game that they played last, against Aston Villa at home, and they are strong.
“They have a confidence now that they can beat [teams]. They won away against Manchester United, and that gives teams like Norwich a big belief and a big confidence to battle to stay in the Premier League. That’s one of the reasons why it’s a difficult game.
“They are fighting to keep their position in the Premier League. They are strong at home and they’re an aggressive team so it’s a difficult one, but we need to win.”
Norwich City Team News:
Andre Wisdom should be available again, while Matt Jarvis is still unlikely to be ready to return.
Player to watch: Dieumerci Mbokani
The on-loan striker did his cause no harm at all against Villa as he put in a beast of a performance leading the line for City. He won plenty of high balls, held the ball up and scored a goal.
Southampton Team News:
Graziano Pelle and Cedric Soares will both be unavailable through injury.
Player to watch: Saido Mane
The Saints winger is highly rated with Manchester United being credited with an interest for January. When he played against us at St. Mary’s he ran riot – I doubt Martin Olsson has been able to sleep since.
Match Facts & Stats
Last time out City were beaten 3-0 at St. Mary’s.
There have been 23 games between the two teams in all competitions W6, L10, D7
Nathan Redmond scored his first ever goal for Norwich in a 1-0 at Carrow Road in September 2013.
That win was City’s first against the Saints since 2008.
Southampton have lost 6 of their last 10 matches and have won only once in their last 8.
City have won 2 of their last 3 matches.
Norwich collected only their second clean sheet of the season against Villa. Southampton only have three clean sheets themselves.
Match Prediction:
This will be a tough match. It will depend on which Southampton turn up, not to mention which Norwich side turn up too. It’s a great opportunity for City to pull away from the bottom three and also drag Southampton down a bit further. We’re at home and the Saints are missing arguably their top striker in Graziano Pelle, although Shane Long may argue with that.
I’ll still go for a Norwich win though.
Next Fixtures:
The FA Cup comes calling next Saturday with Manchester City the visitors – we might be concentrating on the league after that.
