Premier League: 10 things to look out for this weekend - two

Stoke’s brilliant efficiency to stretch Sunderland, West Ham search for a plan B and Yohan Cabaye prepares to show Newcastle what they have been missing

6) Canaries short of sausage rolls and big scalps

It is illustrative of how comfortable Norwich feel about life back in the Premier League that their AGM this week finished with complaints about long waits for food in Carrow Road’s Jarrold Stand (“If I could come down and give you a sausage roll myself, I would,” Delia Smith told the meeting. “We will investigate it”). They may have won only three times in the league all season and only once in their past eight games but there remains an air of quiet confidence in East Anglia. They are, though, yet to win against a team in the top half – two draws and four defeats thus far – so the visit of an Arsenal side weakened by a glut of injuries offers an opportunity to remove that particular monkey from their backs. Alex Neil – for whom, it is easy to forget, this will be just a 42nd match in charge of Norwich – has ditched his attacking style of late and adopted a more cagey approach. It has not quite worked against Manchester City or Chelsea in the past few weeks – but will it work against the Gunners? And will those sausage rolls be ready on time?

7) Shot-shy Villa must find a way to goal

Aston Villa have the worst attack in the division this season, having managed only 10 goals, and it’s perhaps no surprise: of all their players only Rudy Gestede regularly tries to score. Thesummer signing from Blackburn is in fact their only player who averages more than one shot a game (1.77, to be precise). Jordan Ayew, for example, has taken nine shots in nine league appearances this season; his six home games have yielded two efforts on target. Gabriel Agbonlahor has started seven games and taken five shots; in nine appearances apiece Carles Gil, Scott Sinclair and Jack Grealish have five, six and seven shots respectively. By way of comparison, using Saturday’s opponents, Odion Ighalo has taken 31 shots, Troy Deeney 23, Étienne Capoue 13 and Almen Abdi 11. Though as a team Villa are less shot-shy than both West Brom and Newcastle, their shots are also the least well-placed in the division – only 25.37% are on target, compared with 38.51% of the shots they let other teams have against them. Last weekend Everton, on their way to a 4-0 victory over Villa, had nine shots on target; in their last five matches put together Villa themselves have managed 10. They have not simply failed to win matches, they have failed to give themselves any chance of winning matches. On the plus side, between now and the turn of the year they play three of the bottom five, as well as Watford and an out-of-sorts West Ham, but that puts pressure on them to start performing immediately. Incremental improvement is no good to them now; Remi Garde needs to effect total transformation. He will have to do it without Jack Grealish, whose night out in Manchester last Saturday has cost him a place in the squad for this game. Deeney, meanwhile, is a Birmingham City fan who was once offered a trial at Villa but couldn’t be bothered to turn up. “It’s a great stadium and they’re a big club,” he says. “To score in front of the Holte End, with thousands swearing at me, will be lovely.”

8) Which Manchester City will turn up? And will it really matter?

Traditionally the visit of Southampton is a fixture that Manchester City have little trouble with – the last time the Saints won at the Etihad was in City’s first season at the ground, with James Beattie and Kevin Phillips scoring the goals that beat a home side including Michael Tarnat, Paul Bosvelt and Steve McManaman in the starting XI. The Southampton manager Paul Sturrock said afterwards that he could “smell the fear” at the ground. Things are nothing like as bad now but these are slightly uncertain times for City – they’re uncertain whether they’ve really turned the corner in Europe, uncertain about their chances of a third Premier League title in five years, and fundamentally uncertain about which side will turn up on any given matchday. Will it be the City who have lost 4-1 to Liverpool and4-1 to Spurs and, most shockingly of all, drawn 0-0 with Aston Villa? Or the one that despatched Bournemouth and Newcastle for five and six goals respectively and won comfortably at Goodison and against Chelsea? Fortunately for Manuel Pellegrini and his side, Southampton, too, have been a model of inconsistency and they’ve yet to beat anyone in the top half (their five wins coming against teams all in the bottom seven: Norwich, Swansea, Chelsea, Bournemouth and Sunderland). Ronald Koeman’s ploy away from home has been to keep things as tight as possible and the absence of Graziano Pellè isn’t going to encourage him to open up. This might be just the game City need after last weekend’s chastening defeat.

9) Sunderland to be tested by Stoke’s brilliant efficiency

Defender

Ryan Shawcross

Appearances

3

Shots blocked

3

Clearances

19

Stoke conceded five goals in their first three away games in the Premier League, but since the 2-0 defeat at Arsenal on 12 September they have played five away games in all competitions (four in the league, one at Fulham in the Capital One Cup), conceded none, endured one goalless draw and won the rest 1-0. In the league the two goals Watford scored inwinning at the Britannia Stadium last month are the only ones they have conceded in their last six games. The recent return from injury of Ryan Shawcross, who did not start a league game until 31 October and is thus yet to be involved in the concession of a league goal this season, has further strengthened a defence in which Philipp Wollscheid has particularly excelled. The result is a remarkable record of astonishing efficiency, a goal-to-point conversion ratio that would be hard to improve: they have scored only one more goal than Aston Villa this season, but have won 14 more points. The game will be officiated by Mike Dean, who once provoked Tony Pulis into fury by sending off three Stoke players in five games over a single season, 2009-10. “We sent a letter saying we didn’t think we receive a fair crack of the whip with Mike Dean,” he fumed after the last of those decisions. “We are making a case that Mike Dean doesn’t do very well for Stoke. We compiled an in-depth set of statistics, but nobody takes any notice and he gets a game again. I will not speak to him because it’s a waste of time.” Coincidentally, Dean has not sent off a Stoke player in 11 matches since.

10) Bournemouth need a confidence boost (and a striker)

Bournemouth were much the better side against Swansea last weekend yetcame away with just a point to show for it. They were the better side against Newcastle before the international break and were still beaten 1-0. A striker to turn dominance into a few more goals will clearly be a priority in January – the rumour mill has churned up a series of prospective reinforcements: Bradley Wright-Phillips, Charlie Austin, Jordan Rhodes, Lewis Grabban and Dwight Gayle have all been mentioned – but Eddie Howe’s side also need to be in a position where they can entice players to the south coast. And that’s the worry. Howe mentioned a lack of confidence as an issue as early as September and it remains to be seen what effect two excellent performances that have yielded just the solitary point will have on morale. They’ll certainly need to be close to their best against an Everton side who were superb against Aston Villa last time out and are in the midst of a friendly-looking set of fixtures – Roberto Martínez’s team don’t face one of the traditional bigger boys until Tottenham visit Goodison on 3 January. Points-wise, the seventh-placed Toffees are as close to 15th-placed Chelsea as they are to fourth-placed Arsenal but they have an opportunity to push on over the next month or so.