Tomorrow night will see top of the league Norwich City welcome Bristol City to Carrow road in the EFL Championship, the home side will be looking for their third win on the bounce, meanwhile Bristol will be looking amend their 3-1 loss to Norwich at Ashton gate earlier in the season.
Bristol city come into this fixture sat ninth in the table, just four points off the sixth and final play off spot which is being occupied by Reading, despite the massive challenge ahead, Robins centre-half Alfie Mawson is very optimistic of his sides chances, particularly after getting back to winning ways with their 2-0 victory over Preston on the weekend.
Here’s what Mawson had to say about how his side will be approaching this game at Carrow road despite not winning there in their last four league visits.
“A lot of teams go there expecting the floodgates to open, but if we go 1-0 down, we know we’ve got the quality to stay in games and fight back.
“If you want to get to the Premier league then you can’t settle for playing well against the smaller teams, you’ve got to give a good account of yourselves against the big ones too.”
Both sides will see each other as promotion rivals, but in reality Norwich are favourites for a spot in the automatic promotion spots, meanwhile unless Dean Holden’s men can pick up their form and get a consistent run of form going, they won’t threaten the top six, the, his team head into this game having lost their last three away games in the league, the last time Robins lost more than three consecutive away games was in the 2016/17 season under former boss Lee Johnson, when they were defeated six times in a row.
Despite these worrying signs, Mawson will be wishing for three points on Saturday as he will be blowing out candles today on his 27th birthday today.
“I wish it was as simple to say yeah, it’s your birthday you’re going to get 3 points, but it would be a great present for me and the fans.”
Another man wishing is the gaffer as his Injury list is growing, but good news for the build up for this game is that Han-Noah Massengo and Tyreeq Bakinson are available for selection, and could see the Robins reverting to a 3-5-2 formation, meanwhile the home side will likely see the return of dutch international goalkeeper Tim Krul and one of the best strikers in the league Teemu Pukki who is likely to return to the squad.
Mawson described Pukki has a real challenge and one of the best in the league.
“I think his movement is arguably the best in the league.
“when you get to the premier league you’ve Aguero, Sterling, Firmino , players who play on the shoulder and Pukki’s probably the best at it in the league, so we’ve got to be able to deal with that, it’ll be a real test but one I’m sure we can have a right go at.”
Mawson missed the match when these first two sides met earlier in the season at Ashton Gate, watching that game he believes there’s a few things that can be changed to get the three points.
“This time we need to go out there and show what we have on the ball, we need to show our horrible side and fight that we’ve lacked over the last few seasons.
“The goals in the last game we conceded were quite sloppy, so we need to remember they’re a good side that’ll take their chances.”
It appears lessons have been learnt, and the men from the south west seem optimistic about this game and their running from now on in to the end of the season, the match can be watched like on Sky Sports Main Event, the match kicking off at 18:00 UK time.
