Newcastle United host Norwich City in key battle

Norwich travel to St James’ Park as they look to get back on the winning trail as they sit bottom of the league, six points away from safety.

Newcastle made a fantastic comeback in the league last time out against Everton. With the Toffees cruising to what looked like a routine win, two goals from Florian Lejeune in added time earned the Magpies a valuable point away from home.

The Canaries were unfortunate not to get anything out of their game against Spurs. After going 1-0 down when Dele Alli scored, Norwich did not give up and won a penalty which Teemu Pukki converted comfortably. Heung-Min Son was on target though to give Tottenham the win a few minutes later.

Team news

The Magpies have had a lot of injury problems in recent weeks. Jack Colback, Paul Dummett, Dwight Gayle, KI Sung-Yeung, Javier Manquillo, Yoshinori Muto and Jetro Willems are all unlikely to feature against Norwich

Norwich will be without Ben Godfrey who is suspended and will alos be without Emiliano Buendia and Timm Klose who are both out with injuries.

Steve Bruce feels that Newcastle United’s three January signings will have a “big part to play” between now and the end of the campaign – starting with Saturday’s Premier League game against Norwich City at St. James’ Park.

“With the three new lads, it’s essential they’ve come into the squad and they’ll have a big part to play over the next three or four months,” said Bruce. “Very quietly, we’ve gone about it in the right way. I think the three players that we’ve brought in have brought that little bit of quality to the squad. That’s what I was always, always trying to do. Whether we’ll do anything more today (Friday), I doubt, but I’m delighted with what we’ve done. There’s one or two we tried for and couldn’t quite get, but that’s always the case. I’ve always said that if we can’t get the right one, we’ll wait and keep our powder dry for the summer, until the market is far easier than it is for all of us in this crazy four weeks.

“The one thing we haven’t done is panic into what we wanted to get. If you’d have asked two weeks ago if I would have thought about bringing in a left back or a left wing back I’d have said no, but it became a bit of a priority with the problems we had there. We’ve acted in the right way. We’d have loved to have brought another forward player to the club, but that’s not been possible. I’ve always said that it’s about bringing in a bit of quality and improving us, and that’s the only way I’ll act.”

Norwich City manager Daniel Farke spoke about Newcastle experience and the transfer window.

“Steve Bruce is an experienced coach and they will be just focused on the game, not on what else is going on at Newcastle. We have a good chance to win some points and that’s all we think about.

“To sign someone who knows the league you have to spend a lot of money, so we have to be a bit creative. I’m pleased with this window. We allowed fringe players to leave and brought in two proper first-team players. Ondrej and Lukas have proven they can help us immediately.”

Head-to-head

Last time out between the two sides, the Canries were victorious as they beat Newcastle 3-1. The last time Newcastle beat Norwich was back in 2016 as the score on that finished 4-3 in Newcastle’s favour.

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