Two playoff rivals will meet at the Riverside Stadium to kick off the Championship weekend with just five games left on the clock with Norwich City set to head on the road to Middlesbrough with the Canaries down in eighth.
Norwich are coming into this one with 17 wins on the board from the 41 games and are only behind the sixth-placed Blackburn Rovers by one point, although Rovers do have a game in hand to play. At the same time, the Canaries are behind Boro by seven points up in fourth with the North East side still hopeful of overtaking Sheffield United in second who are clear by eight of them.
It's been a dodgy start to Norwich so far in April with the breaking news that their legendary striker Teemu Pukki will also be departing the club, regardless of whether or not they were to achieve Premier League status once again - the Finland all-time top scorer is fourth on Norwich's all-time scoring list and despite scoring just 10 goals this season, he will be missed.
On the pitch, David Wagner's men have lost 1-0 at Carrow Road to second-placed Sheffield United before a fantastic 2-0 victory at Ewood Park over Blackburn Rovers that is proving to be their biggest win of the season in terms of their playoff dream. They once again fell short of all three points last time out, however, with Rotherham United drawing 0-0 at Carrow Road on Monday night, which also means there has been three games in seven days for the Canaries recently.
As for Boro, they are winless in their past three games after a 2-2 draw with Bristol City on Monday and that came just three days on from a 2-1 home loss against the Premier League-bound Burnley. Boro did also lose to Huddersfield just before that loss in a 4-1 hammering in Yorkshire, but they also defeated Preston North End 4-0 before that.
