So as the celebrations of the New Year draw to a close, Norwich host Southampton at Carrow Road tomorrow so I will be covering a few points that Norwich need to be aware of.
A look at the Saints Form:
People seem to have missed that 12th placed Southampton are in rather shocking form, excluding the shock 4-0 victory against top of the table Arsenal, they haven’t won since their scrappy victory away at Sunderland on the 7th of November!
This includes their 6-1 drubbing from Liverpool and disappointing 1-0 defeat to Stoke. Their top goalscorer is Graziano Pelle with 6 goals, which isn’t overly impressing, scoring 26 goals as a club and conceding 23. With only two teams in between us in the table (Chelsea and West Brom) a victory isn’t off the cards for Norwich.
Norwich fairly confident; should they be?
Alex Neil and the players seem to be beaming with confidence after a standard 2-0 victory at home to Aston Villa. It must be said that Aston Villa were never to going to win having only won ONCE this season, on the opening day. Aston Villa also dominated early on so it could be argued that Jonny Howson’s volley was against the run of play, which gave us a very nervous lead for over an hour when Norwich hit Villa on the break and Mbokani scored his third for the season. It wasn’t our best game in terms of performances, but the result was extraordinarily important. Our last good performance was against Man Utd, in a 2-1 victory at Old Trafford and many good performances came before, so the Tottenham game can be seen as a blip in recent good form. This good form has given us 20 points from 19 games, so in theory we’re projected for 40 points for the season. Teams haven’t gone down with 40 points in the last ten seasons and beyond, so we’re projected to stay up.
Should we be confident? In short; yes!
What team should we be playing?
Monday, we fielded a rather unusual formation, with Redmond playing an extremely advanced and free-roaming position. Looking Southampton’s style of play and statistics, Norwich could field a similar lineup and I’d be confident with at least a draw.
However there are a few points:
Should Rudd continue his spell in the first team?
Yes, after another fantastic performance and some brilliant saves, Declan kept his first clean sheet of the season, so I believe he must start.
Mbokani or Jerome?
Both have the same amount of goals, but in terms of performances, it must be Dieumerci Mbokani. He caused absolute havoc against Villa, the defenders like Ciaran Clark could not handle his strength or skill, and his performance paid off with a late goal that killed off all the nerves and seriously dented Aston Villa’s survival hopes.
I would keep the same line-up that played Aston Villa, but I would replace Russell Martin with Steven Whittaker. While many are bound to disagree with this choice, I still think he is making too many mistakes and in Whittaker’s few games this season, he has played well and I believe he should have a chance.
