Norwich City and Bournemouth square off at Carrow Road on Saturday afternoon with the clubs occupying the bottom two places in the Premier League table.
While the home side sit eight points adrift of safety, the Cherries could move out of the dropzone with a welcome victory.
Match preview
© Reuters
Eddie Howe acknowledged after the 3-0 defeat to Watford that he had little choice but to evaluate his own future at Bournemouth, and even the most optimistic of supporters will struggle to disagree with their long-serving manager.
The latest setback was their ninth in 11 outings in the Premier League, a run of form which has led to the club dropping into the relegation zone.
While picking up four points from games with Chelsea and Arsenal over the past month provided encouragement, Bournemouth have barely laid a glove on West Ham United, Brighton & Hove Albion and the Hornets - opposition who they will feel they should be beating.
With home games to follow against Brighton and Aston Villa, Howe will know that this is the most important period of his team's season, and arguably his time at the Vitality Stadium.
Despite success in East Anglia having the potential to change everything, at least two defeats in their next three outings may lead to a change in the dugout.
Having earned his club a surprise promotion to the top flight, Daniel Farke holds a similar standing to Howe, although the German will also be concerned about the progress of his side.
The Canaries are without a win in nine top-flight fixtures, while just one victory has been recorded from 17 attempts since their famous triumph over Manchester City in September.
Most fans will probably want Farke in charge if they suffer what appears to be an increasingly likely return to the Championship, but Norwich desperately require some momentum regardless of their eventual fate.
Success at the weekend could spark them back into life, however, especially with the additions of Ondrej Duda and Lukas Rupp.
Norwich City Premier League form: DLLDDL
Norwich City form (all competitions): LLDDWL
Bournemouth Premier League form: WLDLLL
Bournemouth form (all competitions): LDLLWL
Team News
© Reuters
Farke is likely to hand an immediate debut to Duda, who could slot into the number 10 role behind Teemu Pukki, providing that the Finn has recovery from an issue with his hamstring.
Grant Hanley and Ibrahim Amadou are competing for one place in the centre of defence as Ben Godfrey remains a week away from a return.
With Aaron Ramsdale struggling to recover from a hamstring injury, Mark Travers will likely stay between the sticks for Bournemouth.
Philip Billing may replace Jefferson Lerma, who picked up a knee problem last week, while Nathan Ake should revert back to the middle of defence.
Given the number of injuries in his squad, Howe will probably persist with Dominic Solanke and Callum Wilson in attack.
Norwich City possible starting lineup:
Krul; Aarons, Zimmermann, Hanley, Byram; Trybull, Tettey; Buendia, Duda, Cantwell; Pukki
Bournemouth possible starting lineup:
Ramsdale; Smith, S.Cook, Ake, Rico; H.Wilson, Lerma, Billing, Fraser; Solanke, Wilson
We say: Norwich City 2-1 Bournemouth
While this game is a difficult one to call, we have to go with home advantage. Despite both clubs struggling at both ends of the pitch, Bournemouth are not showing enough to suggest that they can avoid defeat to a team who have produced the majority of their best performances at Carrow Road.
Darren Plant
Data Analysis
Our analysis of all available data, including recent performances and player stats up until an hour before kickoff, suggested the most likely outcome of this match was a win with a probability of 40.07%. A win for had a probability of 35.99% and a draw had a probability of 23.9%.
The most likely scoreline for a win was 2-1 with a probability of 8.64%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 1-0 (7.33%) and 2-0 (5.8%). The likeliest win was 1-2 (8.13%), while for a drawn scoreline it was 1-1 (10.91%).
