Norwich City-Newcastle United
 

We backed City in their last home game, where they recorded a hard fought win over Hull City....

We discussed the Canaries in midweek ahead of their FA Cup defeat at Fulham when I wrote....
"These two sit one and two points respectively outside the drop zone, both within three of Crystal Palace who are currently bottom of the table and this pair are well and truly involved in the relegation battle and need further involvement in the cup, like I need another hole in my head. However, it will be difficult for Fulham as the home side to "give up" on this and after their dire 4-1 loss here to Sunderland at the weekend, they desperately need to stop the rot and record a confidence boosting win. Also, they travel to the Emirates to face the league leaders on Saturday and that win is highly unlikely to come there, so it should be all about today for them, The reverse is true for the Canaries, they host Hull City at the weekend in a must win fixture and surely, this week, they should be prioritising that game. Visiting boss Chris Hughton is under pressure and has spoken about giving the cup his full focus, but he will not risk a couple of players returning from injury this evening and will instead save them for the weekend, along with several others and I think it is clear that Hughton will be saying one thing and doing another."

Sometimes you have to pick your battles and let other games pass you by a little, there is nothing wrong with that, you can still try to win those fixtures with the resources you have opted to use, but the bigger picture is more important . We have spoken many times before about this, especially in Brazil, where the schedule is gruelling and travel and officials severe and occasionally, that middle game of three is just too much. Anyway, this week was always going to be about today for Norwich and I hope and expect them to win today, home boss Chris Hughton is one of the good guys and always conducts himself with great dignity and I have a lot of time for him and not just because he ended his playing career at Brentford !! Norwich have three very win-able fixtures now and I hope that at the very least, he is given those to get his team back on track. He rested six starters at Craven Cottage and they are likely to all return today, City also get a couple of others back from long term injury and have on loan Newcastle United midfielder Jonas Gutierrez, who was a key man in the Magpies squad that Hughton led to promotion, to further freshen up the squad.
 

That win eased the pressure on Hughton (that is Chris pictured in a former life btw !), the players spoke in his favour after the game and with their commitment during it and they showed their togetherness with the "huddle" after the goal. The win should have been more emphatic and the return of Anthony Pilkington from the bench after missing the last nine PL games was important, they have won 6/13 when he is involved, just 2/11 when sidelined. He replaced debutant Jonas Gutierrez (see above) in that game and with the loanee unable to play against his parent club and with another ten days of training under his belt, I do not doubt that Pilkington will start this evening.
 

United have sold Yohan Cabaye (19-7-3) to PSG they are 0-2-1 without him this season, two home draws and a heavy road defeat and were an eyepopping 2-1-9 without the Frenchman last season, the two wins came against relegated teams (QPR and Wigan) and on the road, they are 0-1-7 over the two campaigns when he has been missing, conceding at least two in each, at an average of over 3 per game ! I think we can say he will be missed !