HomeMatch PreviewsNorwich City vs Wigan Athletic | Match Preview

Norwich City vs Wigan Athletic | Match Preview

The Canaries will hope to continue their great run of form against Wigan and extend their ten game unbeaten streak. Norwich are currently third in the form table from the past six games. This includes victories over Manchester United and most recently Swansea. Chris Hughton’s men have not lost at home since September 29th to Liverpool.

Wigan dropped into the bottom three in mid-week after Sunderland’s victory over Reading. Both Norwich and Wigan have scored the same amount of goals but are enjoying different kinds of seasons so far. This proves that Wigan have been leaking goals whilst Norwich have been doing very well at the back. Ali-Al Habsi has kept only two clean sheet’s compared to the five of England goalkeeper John Ruddy, who will not feature against Wigan. The Latics have lost four out of their last six games

Past meetings

The only two Premier League games these two teams have played have both ended in 1-1. However, the good form of Norwich and lack of form of Wigan could sway toward the home team. The teams have only played each other seven times in their history; this will be their fifth league game. Wigan have only ever won one game against Norwich but never at Carrow Road.

Team News

It was revealed on Tuesday that captain Gary Caldwell will be out of action up until Boxing Day. The defender has a 60% tackling rate, so there is no doubt that Wigan’s skipper will be missed. Ivan Ramis is only rated 50-50 to play against Norwich. Wigan could possibly welcome the returns of Antolin Alcaraz, Shaun Maloney, Albert Crusat and Ryo Miyaichi. Unfortunatley Ben Watson remains out with a broken leg.

Norwich will continue to be without Goalkeeper John Ruddy, who is scheduled to be out until February with a hip injury. However Michael Turner could return for the Canaries after a shoulder injury.

Ones to watch

Sebastian Bassong has been very impressive for Norwich this season. He had a poor end to last season with relegation with Wolves but this season has been a complete turnaround for him with Norwich. The Cameroon International has started 14 games for Norwich this season, claiming five clean sheets. He has won 52% of Ground 50-50 challenges and 67% of Ariel 50-50 challenges. Bassong’s head-to-head against Arouna Kone will be very interesting, as both are very strong, physical players and it will be intriguing to see who comes out on top.

A man who has shone for Norwich this season is Robert Snodgrass. The summer signing from Leeds has provided three assists and helped himself to three goals to a Norwich side who have only scored seventeen goals all season.

Jordi Gomez has scored three goals this season, but all were against Reading in Wigan’s 3-2 win. However despite this, he is still a handful and has had a 100% long ball accuracy in seven matches this season. James McCarthy has also been outstanding for Wigan this season. He breaks up the opposition play and always knows where to find a man. This is proven by his average of 89% of passing accuracy throughout the first 16 games of the season.

Despite the different run of form for both teams, I can see this game being very evenly matched.

Prediction: Norwich 2-2 Wigan

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