Norwich City travel to East London tomorrow to face an in-form West Ham side that has won their last three league matches, including impressive wins against both Liverpool and Manchester City away from home. Norwich have also been on good form in the last few weeks. A win against Bournemouth and a spirited draw at Liverpool has done wonders for confidence and Norwich fans will head to Upton Park full of optimism that the Canaries can get something out the game. Both sides played Premier League opposition in the Capital One Cup in mid-week with West Ham losing 2-1 to Leicester on Tuesday night and Norwich comfortably seeing off West Bromwich Albion 3-0 at Carrow Road on Wednesday.
West Ham will have a number of players ruled out through injury with Angelo Ogbonna, Alex Song and Enner Valencia all set to miss out, but Dimitri Payet, Winston Reid and Diafra Sakho could return. Norwich boss, Alex Neil, has something of a selection headache in attack with Wednesday night’s favorite Kyle Lafferty and Dieumerci Mbokani fighting with first-choice striker Cameron Jerome for a starting berth. However, Matt Jarvis will miss out as he is ineligible to play his former club which will dismay Canary fans following his strong opening matches. However, this could see Robbie Brady pushed forward to replace Jarvis and Martin Olsson to slot back in at left-back for his first league start since returning from injury. Wes Hoolahan and Nathan Redmond should also start after being rested against West Brom.
Norwich’s recent form against West Ham isn’t spectacular and they have won just once in the last nine meetings between the two clubs. Norwich did beat them at Carrow Road two years ago in a 3-1 victory but it was the London side that won the reverse in a 2-0 win inspired by Adrian’s heroics in goal. This will be the final time Norwich travel to Upton Park, providing they don’t get drawn together in the FA Cup, as the Hammers move to the Olympic stadium in Stratford in the summer.
But this isn’t the first time that Norwich have played West Ham this season; with the Canaries hosting the Hammers in a friendly match last summer to honor 80 years of football at Carrow Road. Unfortunately, the Canaries failed to celebrate in style and lost 1-0 courtesy of a Harry Toffolo own goal late on.
Form (least to most recent):
West Ham – W D D W D
Norwich City – W D L W D
Predicted starting XI:
