Norwich v Spurs Almost Guaranteed To Produce Goals

Both these teams are outperforming start of the season expectations, Norwich head into this match in ninth place before the Boxing Day fixtures despite being the second favourites for relegation at the start of the season. Norwich have played entertaining football this season and have gained some great results but Paul Lambert will be all too aware of what has happened to other newly promoted teams after a bright start, Blackpool being the most recent example last season. Spurs meanwhile, come into this game off the back of a draw against Chelsea and that meant they were third in the league on Christmas day with just one loss from their last fourteen league matches.

A slight stroke of luck for Norwich with the suspension of on loan Kyle Naughton, the full back serves his one match ban following his fifth yellow card of the season in a game he couldn't have played in anyway against his parent club. Elliot Ward and James Vaughn remain on the long term injury list but there could be a boost for the Norwich defence with fellow long term injury victim Ritchie De Laet expected to play some part after recovering from injury.

Rafael Van Der Vaart was initially ruled out for this fixture after going off at half time against Chelsea with a hamstring injury but a scan this week has revealed that there was no tear and the Dutchman could make an earlier than antipated return from injury, especially with his back up Jermain Defoe still also struggling with a hamstring injury that has kept him out of the last two games. Younes Kaboul is another expected to miss out with a hamstring injury picked up in the warm up against Chelsea and with Ledley King likely to be rested after playing twice in a week it could be William Gallas and Sebastien Bassong in central defence for Spurs.

The Tottenham ValueChecker Wikis show that Spurs can be a fairly highscoring team that also concedes goals, in the last two seasons they have won eight games by a 2-1 scoreline whilst in half of their games last season they conceded exactly one goal. This Spurs side come up against an extremely open Norwich side, their only game from their last six that hasn't had over 2.5 goals was a 1-1 draw against low scorers Everton. Both side's form points to over 2.5 goals and that should be a good bet for this match.

For more betting pointers on these two teams click in the green 'W' next to the teams in the odds matrix. Feel free to add your own wikis, registration is quick and easy, just supply an email address and password.

Recommendation: BACK OVER 2.5 GOALS