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Excited Canary

Norwich City vs Reading: Match preview

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NORWICH CITY vs READING on 13/11/10 at 17:20 BST.

Today''s early evening match brings Norwich City and Reading together in the Npower Championship. The game will be showed live on Sky Sports 2 and Sky Sports 2 HD.

READING: After a poor start to the last campaign, finding themselves in the drop zone, rookie manager Brian McDermott was appointed. No-one was really sure what to expect from the former Arsenal and Cardiff player, and if anything the Royals'' fans would probably have been hoping for a bigger name to replace latest deportee Brendan Rogers. On the plus side, he had been at the club for 10 years, in 3 different roles; Chief scout, reserve team manager and under-19''s manager. His experience at the the club from Berkshire, certainly came to his advantage as he guided them to ninth place picking up February and March manager of the month awards along the way.

They have started this season pretty well, sitting in 10th place but just a point behind today''s opponents which proves just how tight the league is. The Royals will be hoping to leap-frog the canaries tonight-and they will do that if they take the 3 points.

Key Player: Jobi McAnuff. The London born midfielder has had quite long spells with 6 clubs, but he will be hoping, with Reading, that he has found a team that he will stay at for longer than 2 seasons. After some top performances last year, most notably in the FA cup, he was touted to be off to money bags QPR this summer but it was never to be. On his day the midfielder can cause any of defenses havoc, but he has a bit of trouble producing the goods consistently. All the Reading fans, and the neutrals watching tonight will be hoping he will be on top form this evening.

Recent form: LWWLD. Consistency has been Reading''s biggest flaw this season and their last 5 results prove this. A defeat away at relegation-threatened Bristol City only to be followed by the thrashing of Burnley. Like the Canaries, they took 1 point out of their fixtures against the divisions top two including their 1-1 draw with Cardiff on Wednesday. The Royals could have snatched all 3 points had it not been for a controversial Jay Bothroyd strike.

Predicted team line-up:

Federici

Griffin

Mills

Zurab

Harte

McAnuff

Karacan

Tabb

Howard

Robson-Kanu

Long

NORWICH: The Canaries tasted a bit of their own medicine on Tuesday night when they conceded a sickening 93rd minute equalizer at the Den. A weakened City team put up a stern fight and took the lead courtesy of a David Fox bullet. Fox got his rare start due to normal central midfielder, Andrew Crofts was out with a suspension. However, Crofts will be back into tonight''s squad, and however harsh on Fox, will be fully expected to regain his place in the starting line-up. Whilst, left backs Adam Drury and Stephen Smith are still sidelined, so usual left midfielder Simon Lappin will have to drop back again. Summer signing Andrew Surman is expected to return for next week''s fixture against Leeds United having spent 2 month''s on the injury table.

Predicted line-up:

Ruddy

R.Martin

Ward

Barnett

Lappin

K.Smith

Crofts

McNamee

Hoolahan

Holt

C.Martin

Head to head:

Played: 64

Reading win: 26

Norwich win: 22

Draw: 16

At Reading:

Played: 32

Reading win: 17

Norwich win: 9

Draw: 6

Last time out. Monday 27th April 2009. Also a televised fixture, a Shane Long double left relegation out of Norwich''s hands.

My prediction. Reading 3-1 Norwich. Sky cameras and Norwich are not best of friends. It seems that Norwich always produce some of their worst performances of the season in-front of the cameras, and I can only see that continuing against a top Reading side.

Please feel free to update this thread with news, views, rumours and predictions.

Thank you,

Excited Canary

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Thanks, yeah. In the article on the home-page about Lambert needing to strengthen his squad in January, it says him and Drury are expected to return next week :(

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