Norwich City v West Brom – live! | Rob Bagchi

• Click on auto-refresh for all the latest action • Ping your emails to rob.bagchi@guardian.co.uk • Peruse our stats centre Singing birds: “The Canaries haven’t been as good since they had Robins and Ekoku up front,” writes Gary Naylor, popping over from the over-by-over. “They were really flying then.” They were, Gary. And what a team they had then. I saw Jeremy Goss score a beaut at Elland Road in that nasty kit. I also had a soft spot for Ian Crook, lovely passer. As for the Baggies, it’s a big call to drop Chris Brunt. Roy Hodgson loves 4-4-2 but he can’t expect Graham Dorrans to bomb up the right, though he’ll make space for Steven Reid, I suppose. Afternoon all: I’ve been handed the honour of guiding you through the meeting of the songbirds this afternoon, Canaries v Throstles. Bet the Baggies are pleased the Victorian gentlemen of the Hawthorns opted for that nickname for the song thrush, rather than the mavis, though “C’mon you Mavises” has a certain ring to it. I’m looking forward to having a good look at two players I saw twice each in the Championship last season, Shane Long and Steve Morison. Both are hugely industrious forwards, though my colleague, David Pleat, was not too taken with the latter’s performance for Wales last week, citing a lack of pace to cause England’s centre-halves many problems at the spearhead of a 4-5-1. It transpires that he’s on the bench, alongside Wes Hoolahan. The curse of the pre-written preamble strikes Chris Martin is up front and has the goal machine Grant Holt alongside him today, though, who’s no Usain Bolt himself but has that happy knack of excellent positioning for knockdowns and dink throughs. He’s given away 13 free-kicks this season so far, however, and needs to be a bit more savvy. Having said that he’s been fouled himself 16 times which shows how often the ball’s been funnelled up to him. Norwich have two points from three games, West Brom none, though both have performed pretty well from what I’ve seen on TV. The last three top-flight meetings between the two at Carrow Road have all been won by the home side, the last in 2005, a 3-2 home victory when they came back from 3-2 down and Damien Francis scored the winner. That was during the Albion season when they stayed up on the last day and Nigel “Barney” Worthington’s Norwich went down. Team news will be with you as soon as I have it. With John Rudd suspended and no senior deputy to hand, Norwich will be banking on the 20-year-old Declan Rudd today. “”I’ve got no fear about him playing,” his manager, Paul Lambert told the Norwich Evening News. “He’s never let me down, never let himself down, so I don’t have any problem.” Sounds like a fair endorsement, given that Lambert is usually rather unforthcoming Here are your teams: Norwich: Rudd, Naughton, Barnett, De Laet, Tierney, Bennett, Crofts, Bradley Johnson, Surman, Holt, Chris Martin. Subs: Russell Martin, Morison, Vaughan, Jackson, Hoolahan, Fox, Wilbraham. West Brom: Foster, Reid, Olsson, Tamas, Shorey, Dorrans, Mulumbu, Scharner, Thomas, Long, Odemwingie. Subs: Fulop, Tchoyi, Morrison, Brunt, Dawson, Jones, Cox. Referee: Mark Halsey (Lancashire) Premier League Norwich City West Brom Premier League 2011-12 Rob Bagchi guardian.co.uk

Posted by on September 11, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.