Premier League: Norwich among relegation favourites

Michael Lintorn
27 July 2012

Chris Hughton has never completed a season as a Premier League manager

Join

Twitter

Facebook

View the Betslip

They exceeded all expectations last season, but life after Paul Lambert is expected to be tough on Norwich...

"All the players who impressed in 2011/12 remain, supplemented by Steven Whittaker, Jacob Butterfield and now Robert Snodgrass."

Though Norwich finished behind Swansea on goal difference alone on their Premier League return, having climber further in a shorter amount of time, they didn't appear to receive quite as much credit as the stylish Welsh side.

Whereas Brendan Rodgers was able to use his success as a springboard to Liverpool, Aston Villa were Paul Lambert's most high-profile suitors. And while Swansea contributed three players to Great Britain's Olympic team, the Grant Holt for Euro 2012 bandwagon never really gained momentum.

The view of the Swans as the more fashionable of the two equally admirable overachievers has been enhanced this summer with Michael Laudrup, one of European football's glamour names filling the vacancy at the Liberty Stadium as Norwich shopped in the Championship for Chris Hughton.

Maintaining the theme, despite both new managers theoretically starting from the same position, the Canaries are 2.6213/8 third favourites to be relegated, considerably shorter than 3.211/5 sixth favourites Swansea.

Hughton feels like a reasonable appointment for the East Anglian club though, as in his two previous jobs he has inherited a Newcastle side devastated from dropping into the Championship and led them to mid-table in the Premier League and then guided troubled Birmingham into the play-offs.

It looked for a while as if they might lose top scorer Holt due to a contract dispute yet that was resolved, the consequence being that all the players who impressed in 2011/12 remain, supplemented by Steven Whittaker, Jacob Butterfield and now Robert Snodgrass.

So why are they among the most fancied teams to go down? Presumably punters believe that Swansea's stars are more naturally talented and, by extension, that Lambert was more integral to Norwich's rise than Rodgers was Swansea's, and that they will struggle more in the aftermath.

Whether there is any merit to that theory will be revealed by the events of the upcoming campaign.