On loan Manchester United defender Ritchie de Laet is a major doubt for Norwich City’s trip to Manchester City. Norwich will be making a trip to the League leaders, and manager Paul Lambert would have been hoping for a full strength team to take on the League leaders. However, he may have to do without the services of Ritchie de Laet, who has been in excellent form this season. The only for Paul Lambert, though, will be the return of Zak Whitbread to first-team action. Manchester City have been in excellent form this season, and they have been exceptionally strong at home.

So far, they have won all their home matches, with the four dropped points all coming in the away matches. Hence, Norwich need to be extremely aware of the fact that they can be picked apart if they are concentrating enough on the match. Ritchie de Laet will be missing the match against the arch rivals of his parent club – Manchester United – due to a back problem. Norwich can consider even a draw to be a major success given the way Manchester City have been performing at home this season. The return of Zak Whitbread, though, will be doing some way into consoling Paul Lambert from the fact that Ritchie de Laet is missing for the match.

Zak Whitbread injured himself in the early stages of the season in the match against Chelsea, and the match against Manchester City will be one of his first since returning from injury. The match against Manchester City may come a little too soon for another defender Daniel Ayala. Norwich, though, can take heart from the fact that they have a number of players returning back from injury, the most important among them will be Elliott Ward, who has started training.