Palace v Norwich City

Selhurst Park, Saturday 3.00pm

Aki Riihilahti

Team news

Belgian goalkeeper NICO VAESEN, on loan from Birmingham for the rest of the season, is in line to make his Eagles debut.

Aki Riihilahti is back after an ankle injury and on-loan defender Mark Hudson returns after his one-match ban.

Ben Watson is available for selection after recovery from an injured groin.

Norwich's loan signing from Wolves, midfielder Kevin Cooper, should feature for the Canaraies. Adam Drury and former Palace striker Leon McKenzie face late fitness tests. Another old striker, Matt Svensson, will be playing.

Norwich City - league stats

Position	Played	Won	Drawn	Lost	Points
1st	36	20	10	6	70

Full league table

Norwich City - current form

Played	Won	Drawn	Lost	For	Against
5	2	2	1	8	4

Full form table

Our home record v Norwich City

Played	Won	Drawn	Lost	For	Against
47	29	7	11	85	41

Last five results

Date	Type	Home Team	Score	Away Team
27/09/2003	League	Norwich City	2 - 1	Crystal Palace
14/12/2002	League	Crystal Palace	2 - 0	Norwich City
16/11/2002	League	Norwich City	2 - 0	Crystal Palace
30/03/2002	League	Norwich City	2 - 1	Crystal Palace
28/10/2001	League	Crystal Palace	3 - 2	Norwich City

All time results

One to watch

Darren Huckerby

Norwich City's top scorer

Darren Huckerby - 9 goals

Norwich City's bad boy

Matt Svensson - 5 0

Palace old boys

Marc Edworthy - 09/06/1995-26/08/1998, Leon McKenzie - 07/10/1995-12/10/2000, Matt Svensson - 30/09/1998-27/01/2000

Before the days of my move to London i used to live in Leamington Spa, which, for those of you who dont know is right next door to Coventry.

I remember one day reading all over the pages of the Coventry Evening Telegraph about this amazing new talent they had called Darren Huckerby. They weren't wrong.

He did wonders for them, but surprisingly to me he hasn't really done anything since leaving. Until now. Norwich have had buy of the season in my opinion with this man. He is skillful, agile, quick and can single handedly take apart any defence in the league.

A lot of teams have struggled to cope with him and it was proved a couple of weeks ago that you need to stay close to him to keep him out of the game, as when local rivals Ipswich manager Joe Royle was asked if he was going to man mark Huckerby for the entire game, he said "No, we don't need to, our defence can cope with it".

How wrong Mr Royle was, as Huckerby proceded to destroy them. Then Cardiff manage to beat Norwich 2-1 last saturday whilst religiously man-marking Huckerby and phasing him completely out of the game. This technique has worked and will prove effective.

I believe if we treat Norwich & Huckerby in the same as we treated Cardiff & Earnshaw we can win this. Otherwise Huckerby will have a field day. There is no room for error.

Last meeting

Norwich City 2-1 Palace

Saturday September 27 2003

Norwich City: Green, Edworthy, Mackay, Fleming, Drury, Harper (Mulryne, 69), Francis, Holt, McVeigh, Huckerby, Crouch (Roberts, 83)

Subs not used: Lewis, Henderson, Easton

Bookings: McVeigh, Mulryne

Goals: Huckerby 38 (pen), Mackay 89

Palace: Berthelin, Mullins, Fleming, Powell, Butterfield, Derry, Hughes, Borrowdale (Riihilahti, 50), Johnson, Freedman, Shipperley

Subs not used: Cronin, Symons, Williams, Routledge

Bookings: Borrowdale, Derry, Fleming, Johnson, Mullins

Goal: Derry 2