Norwich City v West Ham United
Premier League, Carrow Road, Sunday 8 May 2022, 2pm BST
West Ham United return to Premier League action on Sunday with a trip to Carrow Road to take on Norwich City.
David Moyes’ men head into the weekend seeking to return to winning ways following back-to-back Premier League defeats by Chelsea and Arsenal and a UEFA Europa League semi-final exit at Eintracht Frankfurt on Thursday evening.
The Irons sit seventh in the Premier League table going into the weekend, with 52 points from 35 matches played, and remain in the race to secure European football for a second consecutive campaign. A seventh-place finish would see the Hammers qualify for the UEFA Conference League for the first time, while sixth would see the Irons return to the Europa League.
Dean Smith's Norwich were relegated to the EFL Championship after a single season last weekend following a 2-0 defeat at Aston Villa. It is the fourth consecutive season the Canaries have either been promoted or relegated.
The reverse fixture at London Stadium, played in January, was settled 2-0 in West Ham's favour by two Jarrod Bowen goals.
A repeat of that result would put the Hammers in pole position to finish in the top seven and return to Europe again next season.
Ticket news
The first 90% of our allocation of 2,609 tickets sold out to Bondholders and Season Ticket Holders with 44+ Loyalty Points. A ballot was then held for the remaining 10% (260 tickets), open to Season Ticket Holders who had yet to purchase for this fixture.
To enquire about Club London packages for our remaining home Premier League fixtures; please call 0204 551 0037 or click here.
How can I follow the game?
Kick-off on Sunday is 2pm BST, but the game is NOT being broadcast live on television in the UK. Please check your local TV listings if you live outside the UK.
Team news
West Ham United will be without centre-back Angelo Ogbonna (knee), but have no fresh injury concerns following Thursday's UEFA Europa League semi-final second-leg tie with Eintracht Frankfurt in Germany.
Norwich City will be without Republic of Ireland striker Adam Idah (knee), Turkey centre-back Ozan Kabak (hamstring) and American centre-forward Josh Sargent (ankle).
The opposition – Norwich City
It is now nearly 30 years since Norwich City mounted an unlikely title bid in the Premier League’s first-ever season, going eight points clear at the top of the table and eventually finishing third, before following that with an historic UEFA Cup victory over Bayern Munich.
The early 1990s were heady days in Norfolk, where manager Mike Walker moulded an exciting team featuring rampaging full-backs, rampaging wingers, silky midfielders and unstoppable strikers.
The names Gunn, Culverhouse, Prior, Butterworth, Newman (Rob, now West Ham's Head of Recruitment), Bowen, Crook, Goss, Fox, Robins and Sutton will forever be part of Norwich City folklore, with many of them honoured at and still regular visitors to Carrow Road.
Those two seasons, just prior to the huge expansion of the Premier League into a worldwide force and the arrival of superstar players from across the globe, Norwich became not just the pride of Norfolk, but the darlings of English football.
In many ways, while Norwich are no longer challenging at the very top of the game, and have not competed in European football since, they remain a club which every supporter has a soft spot for.
Owned by celebrity chef Delia Smith – a television star in the 1970s and 1980s – and her husband Michael Wynn-Jones – a writer and publisher who has supported the club since the 1950s – Norwich City, in some ways, remain a throwback to the days before football became what it is today.
While other promoted clubs have mortgaged their futures by throwing more money than they can seemingly afford at trying to stay in the Premier League, Smith and Wynn-Jones’ Norwich have taken a more pragmatic approach, partly out of necessity, but also because they simply do not want to put their 119-year-old football club at risk.
The result has been Norwich, who spent all but three seasons between 1982 and 1995 in the top-flight, becoming English football’s modern-day yo-yo club.
In each of their last five visits to the Premier League, the Yellows have stayed for just a single season before being relegated back to the second tier.
In an attempt to avoid history repeating itself this time around, Smith and Wynn-Jones replaced Daniel Farke with former Aston Villa boss Dean Smith in November.
However, after a bright start under Smith, the Canaries have fallen, losing 15 of their previous 20 Premier League matches to drop to the bottom of the table and, following a 2-0 loss at Aston Villa last weekend, were relegated to the Championship again.
The challenge now will be to bounce back immediately for the third time in five seasons next term.
Previous meetings
West Ham United are six Premier League matches unbeaten against Norwich City.
The Hammers have won four and drawn two of the last half-dozen Premier League meetings between the two clubs, doing the double in 2019/20, with a 2-0 win at London Stadium being followed by a 4-0 victory at Carrow Road, and can do so again this season after winning the reverse fixture 2-0 at London Stadium in January.
Michail Antonio scored all four goals in our victory in Norfolk on 11 July 2020, becoming the first West Ham player to score four goals in a single Premier League match in the process.
That result was also West Ham's widest margin of victory over Norwich in the competition.
The Canaries' biggest Premier League win over the Hammers was a 3-1 success in Norfolk on 9 November 2013.
Match officials
Referee: Robert Jones
Assistant Referees: Ian Hussin & Wade Smith
Fourth Official: Kevin Friend
VAR: Graham Scott
Assistant VAR: Simon Long
Merseysider Robert Jones takes charge of a West Ham United fixture for just the fourth time on Sunday.
Jones previously refereed the 4-0 EFL Cup third-round defeat at Oxford United in September 2019, the 1-0 Premier League win over Fulham at London Stadium in November 2020 and the 4-0 FA Cup fourth-round win over Doncaster Rovers in east London in January last year.
Born in Wirral, Jones previously ran the line in more than 100 EFL matches before being promoted to Football League List of referees for the start of the 2016/17 season.
Affiliated to the Cheshire FA and Wirral Referees’ Association, Jones has enjoyed a rapid rise through the footballing pyramid.
He refereed the 2016 National League Play-Off final and the 2018 EFL League One Play-Off final, before being promoted to the Select Group of Premier League officials in summer 2020.
