Newcastle United vs Norwich City – Match Preview
After a convincing victory at the weekend against newly promoted Burton Albion, Alex Neil’s men travel to Tyneside to face a strong Newcastle side on Wednesday night in the Sky Bet Championship.
Wednesday’s fixture a St James Park will be the first time that Norwich have met one of the two other teams who were relegated from the Premier League with them last season. The last fixture between the two resulted in a 3-2 win to the Canaries at Carrow Road, with Martin Olsson scoring the most dramatic of last minute goals to win it for Norwich.
Despite this, the Newcastle squad has seen some drastic changes during the season, with manager Rafa Benitez signing eleven players to try and help get the Magpies back into the Premier League at the first attempt.
Newcastle currently sit 5th in the Championship table after nine games and host Norwich after a frustrating 1-1 draw away to fellow relegated team Aston Villa. Other recent results include a 0-2 defeat at home to Wolves and 0-6 annihilation of QPR at Loftus Road. On the other hand, Norwich travel to St James Park on the back of a 3-1 home victory over Burton Albion, in a game where City showed their capabilities in this division and regained top spot in the league, despite missing a penalty for a second successive game.
Norwich should have an almost complete squad for the trip, with new striker Nelson Oliveira hoping to get more game time than the five minutes he received at the weekend. Midfielder Alex Tettey is hit and miss for the game, with winger Matt Jarvis still ruled out. Norwich will need to look out for new Newcastle hitman Dwight Gayle. The £10 million pound summer signing from Crystal Palace, who was also linked heavily with the Canaries before his summer move, is Newcastle’s top goalscorer this season and looks like a much-needed asset to the team.
Wednesday’s game could also see Norwich once again come up against former Ipswich striker Daryl Murphy. The Irishman has already played against Norwich this season in the East Anglian derby but has only appeared once for the Toon Army since his summer arrival from Portman Road.