10/1 too big about Chris Hughton’s win-averse Norwich to go down

Recently there came a time when Sunderland’s poor form could be ignored no longer and they began to be regarded as genuine relegation contenders, but the Mackems have notched four league wins since Norwich registered their penultimate league success back in December and the Canaries are beginning to look a juicy long shot for relegation at 10/1.

The rarity of City’s away wins is an ill-kept secret, with their victory in Swansea the only success against top flight opposition all season and two of their remaining games beyond the bucolic safety of East Anglia see them visit the Arab-sponsored pleasure-domes of Arsenal and Manchester City.

In between those two trips to the lions den they’ll visit the Britannia Stadium to face a Stoke side even more embroiled in the relegation scramble.

Norwich will live or die by their form at Carrow Road which, as the recently vanquished Everton can attest to, is no easy place to go. However their potency even their is being called increasingly into question – Chris Hughton’s men have been denied a goal by their visitors in five of their last nine home games, including a 1-0 reverse to non-league Luton.

Of their three remaining home fixtures, two are against relegation rivals Reading and Aston Villa, neither of whom they managed more than a point against earlier in the campaign and the third sees them face a West Brom side that have won on their last three visits to Carrow Road.

A lack of goals is the real millstone round Norwich necks. The Canaries hit the back of the net 52 times on the way to survival last term and it’s demonstrative of the slump they find themselves in that they’ll need to notch more than three goals per game in the six that remain to equal that modest total this term.

Even Grant Holt – aka 2011/12’s unlikeliest Premier League hot-shot – has bagged less than half the amount of goals he’d registered by this time last season.