Norwich suffered a huge shock at home in January when they were beaten by Bradford but that blip is their only defeat in the last 16 league games, to go further back it's only two defeats in the last 21 games.
During that run they put Cardiff to the sword at Carrow Rd, City went down 4 - 1 before Christmas and the sides have gone in different directions since.
When Cardiff lined up at Norwich we were in 7th place, 6 points behind Norwich with a game in hand, since then Norwich have streaked away picking up 27 points from 12 games while Cardiff have earned just 12 points from 13 games.
Make no mistake, the form books show we are massive underdogs for this game. City have lost 3 of the last 4 league games played and only won one in 6.
Norwich gambled, they bought Darren Huckerby and brought in Leon McKenzie and Matthias Svensson. They took the chance and went for it and it looks to have paid off for Delia Smith and her board of directors. They look like taking one of the automatic spots for promotion.
West Brom, West Ham, Wigan wtc will all be willing Cardiff City to do them a favour by shackling Norwich tomorrow. Cardiff's outside chances of the top 6 will all but diminish if we fail to beat Norwich and the chances of the chasing pack catching the Canaries will also diminish as well.
Norwich are expecting to bring around 1200 - 1300 fans tomorrow. Not a bad turnout considering the distance involed and the reputation of Ninian Park. It's a different story when the visit Crystal Palace next weekend. Norwich are taking over 7,000 fans to South London.
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The referee for tomorrow's game is planned to be the appropriately named Jeff Winter. Winter is a Premier League referee and last weekend took charge of the Men v Boys, sorry Arsenal v Portsmouth FA Cup game on live TV.
It'll be the 4th time this season he has taken charge of a Division 1 game, previously at Stoke, Sheff Utd and Preston. He's even done one Division 3 game at Scunthorpe.
Winter has issued 47 yellow cards and 2 red in 24 games.
Norwich's visit to Cardiff is their first since a league cup game in 1983, that finished 0 - 0 with Norwich winning the second leg 3 - 0 to go through. In the league the last visit was on November 7th, 1981 with Cardiff winning 1 - 0.
Lennie Lawerence is definately without Rhys Weston who was injured at West Ham. Graham Kavanagh and Peter Thorne are highly unlikely to feature. Richard Langley is also a doubt. Paul Parry is expected to recover from swollen glands.
Hopefully more exact team news will be available later.
The absence of Kavanagh and the possible absence of Langley could mean a place in the 16 for new signing Lee Bullock.
Norwich's last game was a 3 - 1 home win over rivals Ipswich last Sunday, they lined up
Green, Mackay, Edworthy, Fleming, Brennan, McVeigh, Francis, Henderson, Holt, Svensson, and Huckerby. The bench included Welshman Iwan Roberts and Leon McKenzie
Lennie knows the quality that Norwich has
"Norwich are consistent, that's why they are top and that's why we are where we are," he told the Western Mail
I saw them beat Ipswich 3-1 last week. Ipswich outplayed them in the first half, hitting the bar and the post. But Norwich sorted themselves out at half time. They dusted themselves down and ran out easy winners in the end. That's a sure sign of a top team."
This game v Norwich is the start of a busy period for City. It's followed up by another home game, this time against Reading on Tuesday night and then away to Crewe next weekend. Cardiff are then on TV twice in a few days with the FAW Premier Cup semi final at Wrexham on March 24th and the Sky game v Sheff Utd on March 27th. That one a 5:35pm kick off.
Cardiff City v Norwich City.
Ninian Park. 3:00pm Saturday.