Preston North End will be facing the yo-yo club in Norwich City

Since the 2013-14 season, the Canaries have only spent two season not being promoted to or relegated from the Premier League.

In their last four seasons they have had two league positions come the end of their seasons, either top of the Championship or bottom of the Premier League.

Norwich’s is an interesting story when you look back at their recent history. They secured back to back promotions, winning League One in 2009-10 before finishing runners up in the Championship to earn a season in the top flight.

They stayed for a couple of years before relegation in 2014, only be to promoted via the play-offs the following seaosn under former North End boss Alex Neil. They could not maintaing their Premier League status and were relegated 12 months later, eights and 14th palce finishes followed before their up and down last four years.

Norwich seem to be the embodiment of too good for the Championship but not good enough for the Premier League, with Dean Smith’s side already having a strong start to this season afer propping up the Premier League last campaign.

City are second in the league, only on goal difference, and drew with fellow high-fliers Reading in midweek.

They have only lost twice this season and have won seven of their 12 games so far.

Josh Sargent is leading the way at the moment for Smith’s side, he’s netted six times and set up two more so far this season, closely followed by Teemu Pukki who has four goals. The Finnish forward has been the driving force behind Norwich’s last two promotions from this division but he seems to have a tough challenger in the form of the American Sargent.

The pair do play together, with Sargent utilised from wide areas whilst Pukki acts a poacher, which he has done so well over recent seasons.

He has been Norwich’s top scorer in each of the last four season, scoring 30 and 26 in his last two seasons in the second tier and bagging 11 in both his seasons in the Premier League.

Noriwch do of course have the benefit of parachute payments and they have helped them bring in Brazilian Gabriel Sara this summer for a fee believed to be around £9m.

Otherwise, unlike many clubs that come down, Norwich have not been particularly big spenders compared to what we are used to seeing when teams fall out of the top flight.

The last time the two sides were in the division together they drew both games, 2-2 away and 1-1 at Deepdale. The first draw of the season came under uniques circumstances, Norwich was placed into a unique scenario were they were allowed a limited capacity in for their game against the Lilywhites, one of few all season to have spectators during the 2020-21 season.

North End will have to overcome one of the experts in being promoted outof the Championship on Saturday and their manager Smith has done it before already with hometown club Aston Villa.

It would be quite the statement if Ryan Lowe’s side could turn a promotion favourite over in their own stadium however.