High-flying Norwich City will probably have to do without spearhead Grant Holt in their English Premier League game against West Brom at the Hawthorns after manager Chris Hughton admitted the striker had not trained all week since sustaining an injury in last weekend's 2-1 win over Wigan.
Norwich are on a 10-match unbeaten run, which has seen them glide up the table to eighth position, just four points off the Champions League places.
West Brom, on the other hand, while being in seventh on 27 points, two ahead of Norwich, are winless in four and played a draw goalless draw with West Ham last weekend to end their series of three straight defeats.
Hughton said he was relieved to find out that the hamstring injury to Holt was nowhere near being serious. "The good news is it is certainly not anywhere near as bad as either it could be or as we feared it might be," he said. "Grant is touch and go I would have to say for the weekend. If he did miss West Brom we would certainly hope he is fit enough for the rest of the Christmas period.
"We have a real competitive squad at the moment. We are fairly light on injuries. The only injuries are John (Ruddy) and Andrew (Surman), apart from Grant. This is a time when everybody wants to be involved, but we have two tough away games and two games at home that do not get any tougher."
Norwich do have a few positives in the injury department, however, with defender Ryan Bennett returning to training and forward Harry Kane making a goalscoring return from injury while playing for the reserves in midweek.
"Harry is certainly there or thereabouts," he said. "The decision we have to make on Harry is the fact he has been out for such a long time. He is just off the back of a period of training and he played 60 minutes in the development game in midweek. That is the decision we have to make and the same with Ryan.
"Harry has done a fair bit of work but he will be lacking in some areas, which is normal, but the good news is the injury is fine. It is good to have him back. If he was involved it would be based on the fact he has done enough. We don't want him to break down."
West Brom will be without Youssouf Mulumbu, while Claudio Yacob remains a doubt. Goalkeeper Ben Foster, though, could return.
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Expected lineups: West Brom: Myhill; Jones, McAuley, Olsson, Popov; Brunt, Morrison, Dorrans, Gera, Odemwingie; Long.
Norwich: Bunn; Whittaker, Turner, Bassong, Garrido; Snodgrass, Tettey, Johnson, Pilkington, Hoolahan; Morison.
Prediction: 2-1 to West Brom
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