English Premier League
Stoke City-Norwich City Preview
English Premier League

Stoke City-Norwich City Preview

Published Aug. 20, 2015 12:23 p.m. ET

Two sides looking to build on encouraging performances last time out meet at Carrow Road on Saturday when newly promoted Norwich City host Stoke City.

The Canaries secured a deserved first Premier League win of the season with an impressive 3-1 victory at Sunderland last Saturday. Strikes from Russell Martin, Steven Whittaker and Nathan Redmond gave Alex Neil's side a three-goal lead before Duncan Watmore scored a late consolation for the Black Cats.

Norwich skipper Alex Neil hailed his side's performance on Wearside.

"It's very satisfying because of the way we went about imposing ourselves on the game," Neil told his club's official website. "We got exactly what we deserved as some of our play at the front was scintillating.

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"There were a lot of good individual performances, and collectively as a team it's paid off. We've set a high standard now, with the three points giving us a great base to start from. As a team we then went on to dominate for the majority of the match."

The Canaries (1-0-1) have lost just two of their last 16 league matches, including the Championship and Playoffs last season.

Stoke claimed their first point of the new campaign after battling back from two goals down to draw 2-2 against Tottenham Hotspur at White Hart Lane last weekend.

Eric Dier put Spurs ahead on 19 minutes before Nacer Chadli doubled the lead on the stroke of halftime.

Stoke (0-1-1) pulled a goal back on 78 minutes when Austria forward Marko Arnautovic scored from the penalty spot after Stoke substitute Joselu had been brought down in the box by Spurs defender Toby Alderweireld.

Senegal striker Mame Diouf grabbed a point for the Potters when he headed home a cross from another Stoke substitute, Stephen Ireland, seven minutes from time.

Potters boss Mark Hughes was delighted his side's improved display after the break.

"It's important for confidence to get our first point early on in the new season," Hughes told his club's official website. "We didn't play particularly well in the first half and allowed them a little bit too much time and space to get their technical play going.

"At 1-0 you think we could have gone in at halftime and regroup but the second goal was the disappointment because we talk about seeing games through to a conclusion both at the end of halves and the end of games. We didn't do that and we gave ourselves a real mountain to climb, but I thought we were excellent the second half."

Stoke have won just three of their last 12 league matches dating back to last season, with five defeats and four draws in that spell.

The Potters managed just one clean sheet in their last eight away league matches, a scoreless draw at Burnley in May.

Norwich have no fresh injury concerns, but midfielder Youssouf Mulumbu remains sidelined after breaking a metatarsal bone in his foot.

Stoke's club-record signing Xherdan Shaqiri is due to make his debut at Norwich, while Peter Odemwingie, Marc Wilson and Ryan Shawcross all miss out through injury.

The Canaries took four points off Stoke in 2013-14, their last season in the Premier League. The Canaries won 1-0 at the Britannia in September 2013 on a Jonathan Howson goal 34 minutes in. The sides drew 1-1 at Carrow Road in March 2014 as a Jonathan Walters penalty cancelled out a Bradley Johnson goal. Walters was sent off with 12 minutes to go in that game.

Goals were hard to come by in previous Norwich-Stoke matches. Each side has scored four times in their six Premier League meetings, and no team has scored more than once in any of those games. The results have been split down the middle, with both teams winning twice, drawing twice and losing twice.

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