Goals on the menu when Norwich play Swansea

On paper, Norwich v Swansea, both 13/8 with Coral, looks the dullest of the three Premier League games on Sunday, but the one thing this fixture hasn’t lacked these past two year is goals – and plenty of them.

Since the Welsh club were promoted from the Championship in 2011, there have been four games between Norwich and Swansea and it’s the Canaries who have had the upper-hand, winning 3-1 at home and 3-2 away in the first clashes and then 4-3 away last season before Swansea stopped the rot with a 2-2 draw at Carrow Road.

Without those statistics to hand, it would be hard to imagine a goal-fest this weekend with Norwich averaging less than a goal per game this campaign and Swansea looking fairly toothless going forward in two games over the past week.

Chris Hughton’s team enjoyed a welcome 2-0 away victory at West Brom last weekend, a result not many saw coming, but it’s fair to say they rode their luck (the Baggies had 27 shots on goal compared to eight from Norwich and a 63% share of possession) after Gary Hooper’s opener before Leroy Fer sealed the victory near the end.

Dutch international midfielder Fer has been a real find for Norwich this season and promises to add more goals to the three he has scored already since singed up in the summer. Coral go 5/1 that he gets on the scoresheet again this weekend (12/1 first or last) and that’s a tempting price.

Swansea have been a bit hit and miss this campaign after such a good second season in the Premiership when, of course, they won the League Cup Final and qualified for the Europa League.

It looked as though things were still very much on the up for Michael Laudrup’s men when they beat Valencia 3-0 away in their European opener, but it’s all gone a bit flat since. They were fortunate to get a home draw with Hull last Monday and then weren’t that far from throwing away the chance to play in the Europa League knock-out stages when losing their final group tie in midweek.

Coral are offering big prices a repeat of recent scorelines (33/1 it finishes 3-2 and 150/1 4-3) and there may again be a few goals in it with both sides seemingly well aware of the others’ weak points.

If Norwich win, they will overtake Swansea, an added incentive for both clubs, but this has the look of a draw (5/1) about it, maybe 2-2 (10/1).