Norwich vs Aston Villa September 21, 2013

Prior to the start of the season there was great hope that Norwich City and Aston Villa could both have successful Premier League campaigns. The Canaries arguably had the most impressive transfer window in the entire division, while it seemed almost impossible for the Villans to fare quite as badly as they did last season -- especially retaining top scorer Christian Benteke.

Aston Villa will be looking to pull away from the Premier League's bottom three when they travel to Norwich City on Saturday.

Paul Lambert's side have lost three of their opening four fixtures, including last Saturday's 2-1 reversal to Newcastle United at Villa Park.

Norwich, who sit two places and one point ahead of Villa in 15th, were beaten 2-0 by Tottenham Hotspur last weekend.

Canaries boss Chris Hughton has no fresh injury concerns but may decide to shuffle his pack, with Gary Hooper in contention to make his debut after recovering from a shin injury.

Villa manager Paul Lambert may make changes to the side that lost against Newcastle, with Aleksandar Tonev and Libor Kozak pushing for starts.

However, neither team has delivered on the expectation so far. Norwich have picked up four points from their opening three games and Villa just three points, having not won since the opening game of the season. That means that this game could be quite a cagey affair, between two teams looking to push away from the foot of the table.

Norwich City: John Ruddy; Javier Garrido, Sébastien Bassong, Michael Turner, Steven Whittaker; Nathan Redmond, Leroy Fer, Bradley Johnson, Robert Snodgrass; Johan Elmander; Ricky van Wolfswinkel

Aston Villa: Brad Guzan; Antonio Luna, Ciaran Clark, Ron Vlaar, Matthew Lowton; Fabian Delph, Ashley Westwood, Yacouba Sylla; Gabriel Agbonlahor, Christian Benteke, Aleksandar Tonev

Match Date/Time: Saturday, 12:45 p.m. local, 7:45 a.m. ET

Contact

matchtopic@gmail.com