Norwich City: 4 Reasons Canaries Can Afford to Be Confident Against Fulham

I've been offline for Christmas, but now I'm back to preview the Fulham game. The 2-0 defeat against the Spurs was disappointing, however, the next match offers a more realistic chance to fight for points. 

The Canaries will be at home with the crowd behind them and will fancy their chances of recording an important victory. For those that enjoy a gamble, a Norwich win is priced at eight to five, Fulham win six to four and a draw at 12 to five, according to Sky Bet.

I have compiled this slideshow to showcase why it's so important to get a result. 

Contrasting Attacking Records

It's a well-known fact that goals haven't been hard to come by for Norwich City this season. The same cannot be said for Fulham, though. The West London club have only scored 19 goals in 18 Premier League games, according to BBC News.

Their away attacking record is particularly bad with just five goals from nine games. Individual league goals have also been hard to come by. Clint Dempsey has the best return of six strikes. Andy Johnson is the club's overall top scorer with 11 strikes, but only three of these have come in the Premier League.

In contrast, Norwich City have one of the better attacking records in the league. They have scored 27 goals from their 18 games. The home attacking record is superior to the away one, and so far has produced 16 goals from nine games.

The club's top scorer is Grant Holt with seven league goals, but his current striker partner Steve Morison is only just behind with six Premier League strikes so far this season. 

If we get an open game on Saturday, then back the Canaries to outscore Fulham.

Opposing Home/Away Records

Norwich City's home record in decent enough, featuring four wins so far, and only the Top Five clubs have won more home games. In contrast, Fulham have only won one away league game this season, and as previously mentioned, have failed to score goals on the road.

This should give the Canaries a significant advantage in the game.

Similar Aspirations

Although Fulham can now be considered a seasoned member of the Premier League, and Norwich City are a newly promoted club, both teams have similar targets for the remainder of the season.

Fulham had a bad start to the season, but are recovering nicely. In contrast, Norwich have started well and continued on that vein. Both teams would be reasonably satisfied with a mid-table finish.

This is in contrast to the games played in December against Manchester City and Spurs that clearly have very different expectations for the season. It is often said that it's to win games against the opposition that are likely to finish in the same sort of position.

This all means that a win against Fulham will maintain the gap from the relegation zone, and keep the pressure off. A defeat—on the other hand—would make things a lot more nervy. 

Revenge

The last game of Norwich City's last Premier League experience was against Fulham, and it was certainly a day to forget. The Canaries were looking for a point in a tricky away game and ended up losing 6-0.

This can certainly be an incentive to get a result this time around. Long-serving defender Adam Drury was part of that squad and can explain how it felt. Supporters would be delighted to get revenge with a big win on Saturday.

Follow James Kent on Twitter.