Canaries well perched to extend winning run
Millwall have the joint worst away record in the Championship. Not ideal when you’re heading to the in-form team in the division.
Norwich City (2nd)
Manager Daniel Farke is refusing to let his side get carried away despite briefly going top of the Championship following their 4-0 thrashing of Sheffield Wednesday at Hillsborough. The victory – their eighth in ten games – featured a blistering ten-minute spell of ruthless finishing in the second half and was perhaps more notable for being their first win in this fixture for 17 years.
It’s certainly a good time to be a Canary then. Not many would have had Norwich down as serious promotion contenders prior to the season starting but a superb run of form sees them ranked as one of the most in-form teams in the country and among the cluster of sides looking to cement themselves at the top of the Championship.
Central to the Canaries sitting well perched sixteen games in has to be the manager who, having posted a par mid-table finish in his first campaign, is now fully up to speed with what’s required from a Championship team.
He has maintained a strong spine in the shape of Krul, Klose, Tettey, Leitner for the most part and managed to complement this solidarity with a regular source of goals from Championship journeyman Jordan Rhodes and Finnish international Teemu Pukki.
It’s clear Farke has a clear vision and high standards for this side so expect there to be little chance of Norwich underestimating their opposition with the incentive of reclaiming top spot going into the international break the reward for a fifth win on the spin.
Millwall (19th)
If Millwall had a half decent away record to match the results achieved at home, The Lions would be further up the table than they are currently. In reality though, until they improve on a 10-game winless run that stretches back to last season, there’s every chance they’ll occupy one of the bottom six places, as they do now.
Such a dire record hit a new low at Brentford, the site of their latest point-less away match. Let’s just say the atmosphere became a little heated between the players occupying the away dressing room at Griffin Park. Striker Lee Gregory labelled his side as “not good enough” and not “at it”, which in truth is a fair assessment of the majority of the performances away from The Den.
Manager Neil Harris - no stranger to ‘telling it how it is’ in both his playing days and time in spent in the dugout - had no problems with the alleged confrontation. However, it doesn't say much for the morale of the side at present and hardly breeds positivity with so much of the season left to be played.
The current situation is a far cry from the progress made last season when they were unfortunate to miss out on a play-off place by three points, They can only dream of hitting such heights right now and though they’ll be desperate to address their away days blues as soon as possible, doing so at Carrow Road looks beyond them – even the eternal optimist Harris will look to readjust expectations for this one.
Match Tip
There’s no such thing as a dead cert but this match-up comes pretty damn close. I don’t expect Millwall to lay a finger on Norwich and given the form of both, I was pleasantly surprised to see odds as high as 4/5 (1.80).
