Norwich City face Aston Villa in a vital six pointer at Carrow Road

Following promotion from the Championship last season, both Norwich City and Aston Villa have made a positive start to time the Premier League despite this though both have struggled for points meaning this tie could be a relegation six-pointer.

Last time the two faced each other, Norwich won 2-1 courtesy of a late Mario Vrancic winner which confirmed that they had won the league. The canaries had led from the seventh minute via Teemu Pukki netting one, however, seven minutes later Villa striker Jonathan Kodjia levelled.

When Norwich last hosted someone at Carrow Road they did what seemed impossible as they beat Manchester City 3-2, since then though they have lost 2-0 to both Burnley and Crystal Palace.

Before those games, they lost 3-2 to Chelsea, 2-0 to West Ham and also were knocked out the Carabao Cup by League Two side Crawley Town.

Villa while they have also not been great over the last six games they have remained unbeaten in the last two as they drew 2-2 with Burnley and beat Brighton 3-1 in the Carabao Cup.

Prior to that, they beat Crewe 6-1 which helped them get to face Brighton, though after that they lost 1-0 to Crystal Palace; drew 0-0 when they hosted West Ham and lost 3-2 to Arsenal despite holding the advantage over them for the majority of the game and playing just over a half against ten men.

What the managers are saying:

Daniel Farke doesn’t believe that this tie is as important as it is being hyped up as:

“It’s not like a final or something like this. In the end you need probably something pretty close to 40 points in order to be allowed to stay in this league and for that we take each and every point.

“Listen, especially in such a situation when you have so many key players injured and you are struggling with personal terms, then my feeling is to be able to gain some points is even more important, so for that we are greedy.

“Not so much because of the situation in the table, but we know for each and every game we have to be at our best in order to be competitive and to gain some points and this is what we will try to do at Carrow Road against Aston Villa.”

Dean Smith says the club know that failing to hold a lead has been a problem this season:

“We’ve played nine games this season and took the lead in six of them. We’ve won three, drawn one and lost two so there’s not a massive issue in it.

“Taking the lead against Arsenal and then seeing them slip to 10 men, that was the difficult one. That was the one that hurt. We should have seen it out but we made mistakes for their goals.

“We are certainly doing something right. We will continue to go toe-to-toe with teams and try to beat them.”

Head to Head-

Norwich City Wins- 22

Draws- 16

Aston Villa Wins- 32

Team News-

The canaries have a huge injury list at the moment with the likes of Timm Klose (Knee); Christoph Zimmermann (Ankle); Onel Hernandez (Knee); Tom Trybull (Ankle) and Tim Krul (Lower Back) all being ruled out 100% for this tie with their fellow promoted side.

Ralf Fahrmann who sustained a muscle injury against Crystal Palace last weekend and Jamal Lewis could feature with the latter being named in the Northern Ireland squad despite not quite being confirmed as back from his elbow injury yet.

Away side Villa only have two players out for this tie with those being Jonathan Kodjia (cheekbone) and James Chester as Henri Lansbury; Matt Targett; Wesley and Tyrone have all made recovers for this tie, the later has even been called up to England.