Przemek Placheta may get another chance to impress for Norwich City against Crystal Palace and head coach Dean Smith has praised the winger’s hard work to stretch opposition teams.
The Poland international stepped into the starting line-up around 45 minutes before kick-off at Wolves on Saturday, with Josh Sargent feeling unwell and missing the 1-0 FA Cup win.
Sargent remains a doubt for Wednesday night’s Premier League clash with Palace at Carrow Road as he tries to shake off his illness, having scored twice during the 3-0 victory at Watford prior to the winter break.
“Sometimes it goes unnoticed the runs that people make, that enable others to have chances,” said Smith. “The reason Adam Idah got the one-v-one with John Ruddy was because of the run that Przemy had made to make sure that he was onside.
“Przemy’s influence on the game for us was good, he never got as many goal-scoring opportunities as he probably would have liked and we would have liked. He had the one in the last four or five minutes but that was about it.
“But there was some unselfish running from him that I was really pleased with.”
There is uncertainty about Sargent but illness will keep centre-back Ozan Kabak out again, having also missed the game at Wolves.
Lukas Rupp is available after a hamstring injury kept the midfielder out for nine games and Andrew Omobamidele is also back in full training, but the Palace game is likely to arrive too soon for the Irish defender.
It is Sargent’s absence creating the biggest concern but Smith is confident his in-form squad can cope.
“It’ll be a blow because he’s a big player for us and a good player,” the City boss continued. “He’s got his first couple of (Premier League) goals at Watford in our last league game.
“He was obviously due to play at Wolves but we performed well without him and we feel we’ve got players that can come in but it will be a disappointing blow.”
Jacob Sorensen has suffered a bit of discomfort as he steps up his return from minor knee ligament damage but it’s still hoped that the Danish midfielder and keeper Tim Krul will be back in contention towards the end of the month.
“He was doing some linear running last week and I think when he did some off-line running he felt his knee slightly, so we probably won’t push him back as quickly as we’d hoped,” Smith added.
“But it’s not all bad news because he will return quicker than we had expected.”
- You can listen to the Pink Un Podcast preview of the Palace game in the audio player below
NCFC EXTRA: Canaries players have a 'point to prove' against Palace
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