Norwich City vs Leicester City. Prediction and Preview. Probable Lineups, Team News, Stats, and more

Norwich City FC will host Leicester City FC in the EFL Championship 7th round match at the Carrow Road Stadium. The fixture will take place on Thursday, September 21, beginning at 00:30 IST.

Parimatch News will tell you everything you need to know ahead of the upcoming match.

Norwich City News & Current Form: 

Experienced but seemingly past the peak of their form, Norwich’s players have left a pleasant impression at the start of the season. Wagner’s team has started very well, perhaps even unexpectedly for many. The Canaries are fourth in the Championship standings with 4 wins, 1 draw and 1 defeat since the start of the season. 

The team was not any sort of promotion contender before the start of the season, but it’s important to look at the distance here, as well as the performance of the new sporting director. A team can produce a few good games and then legitimately perform at a mediocre level.

Prior to the break for national team matches, the Canaries’ side led by David Wagner had to make up for a 2:1 loss to Rotherham United FC in the next match against Stoke City FC. It should be noted that despite Norwich not appearing to be the strongest striking club in the league, a goal by Jack Stacey shortly before halftime gave the Green and Yellows a victory at Carrow Road (1:0).

In the second round of this campaign, the Canaries faced a team relegated from the English Premier League last season. The match against Southampton FC ended in a 4:4 draw, an impressive scoreline. Josh Sargent opened the scoring in the 7th minute, after that the opponents scored 2 goals, one of them was scored after a penalty was awarded to Wagner’s opponents.

Players of Norwich City FC after securing a win

Gabriel Sara then equalized and on 45+2 minutes Jonathan Rowe put his team ahead. On 84 minutes Christian Fassnacht made the score 3:4 and the Canaries seemed to have the victory in their pocket. 

But things didn’t go according to plan: on 90+7 minutes, a penalty was awarded to the goal of Norwich, which was successfully converted by Adam Armstrong. The result of the match was a nervous breakdown for the fans of both teams and the score was 4:4.

Marcelino Nunez, a midfielder for the Canaries, will be sidelined with an ankle injury sustained during the international break. Although Dimitris Giannoulis is also out due to a thigh ailment, Wagner is optimistic that the Greek will be able to play. Hwang Ui-jo should be replaced by Adam Idah in the starting lineup, which might not alter. 

Leicester City News & Current Form: 

The Foxes may be the only club among the favorites in the current Championship that chose to win points consistently rather than wait until the conclusion of the season.

With 15 points gained, Enzo Maresca’s team is now ranked second in the standings. The players have only lost one of their last six games, the other five have all been wins.

Leicester surprisingly lost at home to Hull City FC (0:1) on the same day as Norwich lost at Rotherham, giving the head coach plenty to consider over the break. In addition, despite all of their quality, the Foxes have only scored twice or less in league games since the Italian joined the squad.

Early strike from Jamie Vardy in the 21st second helped Leicester upset Southampton 4:1, all four goals were scored before the game’s 70th minute. Stephy Mavididi, Wilfred Ndidi, and Kasey McAteer all added goals. Saints’ player Kamaldeen Sulemana was shown a red card in the 90+7th minute.

Stephy Mavididi celebrating a scored goal against Southampton FC

Stephy about the gaffer and his team:

“For the last one, I was thinking it’s now or never, you’ve got to score this one. Thank God, it went in. I had a few chances before, maybe could have made better decisions, but the main, important thing is that we got the three points.”

“Before the game, we always say to start strong, so when I intercepted that pass, I had one thing on my mind – just attack them straight away, put them on the back foot. It was a good start from us, the best start.”

“We just built momentum from there. When Maresca says to attack them, I’m literally dancing in my head. Getting the ball and running at players, it’s something I like to do. It’s one of my qualities, and I’ll just try and help the team as much as possible. We’ve got a lot of pace in the forward areas and it’s exciting.”

“We’ve got to stick together, keep our feet on the ground and take it game by game. We’ve just got to continue – keep working hard, keep playing the way we are and keep listening to the gaffer. Everyone’s tuned in, which is good.”

Coach Maresca could choose to start the same Leicester lineup that defeated Southampton because the team has had one extra day to rest. Cesare Casadei, a Chelsea FC loanee, entered the game in the final 32 minutes, although he could have to wait a while to play in the Championship this year. Vardy may be benched in favor of Kelechi Iheanacho if Maresca decides the attack needs a player with more physical presence.

Norwich City form guide: W-D-W-W-L-W

Leicester City form guide: W-W-W-W-L-W

Norwich City vs Leicester City Head-To-Head Record:

• December 14, 2019: Leicester City 1 -1 Norwich City (Premier League);
• February 28, 2020: Norwich City 1 – 0 Leicester City (Premier League);
• August 28, 2021: Norwich City 1 – 2 Leicester City (Premier League);
• May 11, 2022: Leicester City 3 – 0  Norwich City (Premier League).

Norwich City vs Leicester City Predicted XI:

Norwich City’s possible starting lineup (4-2-3-1): Gunn; Stacey, Duffy, Gibson, Giannoulis; Sara, McLean; Fassnacht, Barnes, Rowe; Idah.

Leicester City’s possible starting lineup (4-3-3): Hermansen; Justin, Vestergaard, Doyle, Pereira; Ndidi, Winks, Dewsbury-Hall; McAteer, Vardy, Mavididi.

Statistical preview of the match Norwich City vs Leicester City:

• Norwich’s First XI average age is 28.0 years, while Leicester’s First XI average age is 26.6 years.
• The total value of the Canaries’ squad is 70 mln euros, while the value of Foxes is 252 mln euros.
• Norwich City have won their last 3 home Championship games in a row.
• In their 8 most recent matches of all competitions, Norwich City have been undefeated 7 times.
• A series of 5 consecutive away all competitions wins mark Leicester City’s latest record.
• Leicester City have managed to defeat Norwich City in just 1 of their 10 most recent encounters in Championship.
• Leicester conceded an average of 0.80 goals per game in their last 5 games and scored an average of 2.00 goals per game.
• In the last 5 games, Norwich conceded an average of 0.60 goals per game and scored an average of 2.00 goals per game.

What has been said before the match:

Coach of the Foxes Enzo Maresca about the upcoming opponent and his team’s results so far:

“Norwich is a very good team. They try to play and they’re doing unbelievably well. We’re going to try to be ourselves and continue to work in the way we are working and try to get some points there.”

“I think it was a complete performance on the ball and off the ball against the Saints. Off the ball was exactly the way we prepared the game, and since the game started, we showed that we went there to be aggressive and to try to win the game.”

“Now it’s a game every three days until the international break. We try to share minutes, use players as much as we can, and that’s already the reason we made changes the other day. We’ll see tomorrow if we’ll make more changes.”

“The only thing I can say is that when you want to reach somewhere important you need 20 players. For some reason, some players may not play in a game, but for sure we are going to use them.”

Norwich City vs Leicester City Prediction:

Both teams have seen an exchange of goals in their last three meetings out of five. We believe that in this meeting there will be a chance to see an exchange of goals too, as the rivals need to gain points, not to sit in defense.

The match is likely to be played on a counter-course giving a lot of goal-scoring action. The guests have finished the last two meetings out of the last three with a total of more than 2.5, and in the same number of Norwich matches more than two goals were scored. And it is true that even their own efforts are often enough to ensure a one-sided scoreline as Norwich City are netting an average of 2.5 goals per 90 minutes. Note also that in the last two face-to-face meetings between these teams at least 3 goals were scored. So, we can expect a goalkickery in this game as well.

Parimatch News staff prediction:

We say: the match total will be over 2.5 goals – Yes.

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