After back-to-back away defeats over the past week, Norwich return to their East Anglian home this weekend, and it has certainly been a couple of days to forget for those of a yellow
and green persuasion following a promising start to the campaign under former Huddersfield Town boss David Wagner.Last weekend saw the Canaries hit for six at Home Park by Plymouth Argyle during their
disastrous trip to Devon, as ex-Swansea City attacker Morgan Whittaker scored a hat-trick inside 60 minutes, with Dan Scarr, Finn Azaz and Luke Cundle also getting involved in the goalscoring action.After navigating EFL Cup
clashes at fellow second-tier clubs QPR and Bristol City in the early rounds, an outing at Craven Cottage against Premier League Fulham awaited Wagner’s men, who managed to make the net ripple in West London courtesy of Borja Sainz, but Carlos Vinicius and Alex
Iwobi had scored earlier in the third-round contest for Marco Silva’s charges.A four-game unbeaten run at the beginning of the term sent a strong message out to the rest of the Championship that Norwich still have the potential to be a big player at this level,
although successive losses to Leicester City and Argyle in the league most recently heavily suggests that this current crop will not canter to promotion as Teemu Pukki and company did on two occasions.The Canaries sit eighth in
the league standings after collecting 13 points from their opening eight matches – a respectable tally – although the blistering early-season form of Enzo Maresca’s men and newly-promoted Ipswich Town means Saturday’s hosts are already eight points adrift of the top two
Since Jay Stansfield marked his Birmingham City debut with a thunderous 95th-minute winner against Plymouth on August 26, Blues have gone five games without tasting victory, including a 3-1 loss to Cardiff City in the second round of the EFL Cup – a competition the club won in 2011 under the stewardship of Alex McLeish.
Home draws with Millwall and Queens Park Rangers have been sandwiched by away losses at Watford and high-flying Preston North End, and although John Eustace‘s side have not disgraced themselves in any of those quartet of fixtures, there is a consensus that there is considerable room for improvement as a new-look squad continues to gel
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Friday night showdown with Gareth Ainsworth‘s R’s can be summarised by the impressive work of the two goalkeepers present at St Andrew’s that day, with John Ruddy and Asmir Begovic both pulling off remarkable stops to keep the contest level until the final whistle.
Blues now face another flurry of matches before the second international break of the season, with Saturday’s trip to Carrow Road being closely followed by home clashes against Huddersfield Town and local rivals West Bromwich Albion next Friday – a game in which Birmingham may enter as favourites for the first time in arguably a decade.
Sitting 10th in the Championship standings after eight matches of the term, Blues will be pleased with their business so far but a tricky trio of fixtures this week – coupled with an ever-growing injury list – could put a temporary end to the visitors’ top-half position
