The Tigers have won just two league games at Carrow Road since 1971 but will aim to end that record on Saturday
Hull City will arrive at Carrow Road this lunchtime looking to become the first Tigers side to win in East Anglia since two goals in the final 10 minutes from Robert Koren and Tom Cairney sealed success back in 2010.
City have lost their last four trips to Norwich City, and that win fifteen years ago was the first since the early 1970s, so bad is the Tigers’ record there, but the 2025 vintage arrive in good form and face a side that has had a desperate start to the season.
For Ryan Giles, who is in the best form since he arrived at the MKM Stadium in January 2024, it’s imperative that the Tigers continue their upward trajectory and extend their five-game unbeaten run as they head into a three-game week that will take them into the final international break until late March and a chance to get some of their key players back off the treatment table.
WATCH: Ryan Giles looks ahead to City’s trip to Carrow Road
“Three game weeks are always tough, it’s nice to get that break, but just to have a week on the training pitch, people recover, and hopefully keep the good run of form going,” Giles said as he reflected on dropping two late points against Charlton Athletic last weekend, having beaten Birmingham City and Leicester City in the days before.
“It’s obviously frustrating, and you’re coming in (the dressing room) going, ‘Oh man, how, how have we not gone away with the three points?’, but I think we knew Charlton were gonna come in and try and make it ugly; I think that’s what they’re good at and they’re doing it well, to be fair to them.
“When you just settle down a bit, I think you can appreciate (the good week), and I think if you’d have given us that sort of points tally at the start before you played those games, you’d have probably snatched your hand off.
“Conceding from a set play which is disappointing and from our perspective, we probably got that wrong a little bit and that’s something for us to learn from, but on the whole I still think it’s been obviously a very positive start.”
Ending Birmingham’s 29-game unbeaten home run in the league saw City claim their first win, and at Norwich, they’ll face a side who have lost all five of their Carrow Road outings thus far.
Taking seven points from nine and 10 from the last 12 is significant progress for the Tigers, who were many people’s tips to struggle again this term, but Giles says if City don’t continue that form this week, then it will count for little.
“I like to have the motto here, if you can’t win, don’t lose sort of thing. In this case, it was different because we were winning. If you’d have looked at it from the start, we had a tough, tough away game against Birmingham, which we knew would be a tough game with them not losing at their stadium for a long time. To come away from there with three points was brilliant, and that was a gritty win, in all honesty.
“Then we come at home to Leicester and I think our home form, as of late, has been really good, so we knew it was gonna be a tough game, obviously they’ve got good individuals, but you go there with full belief being at home with the fans behind you, and that turned out to be a successful evening.
“We knew it would be a tough game (against Charlton). On the whole, it’s a positive, but we have to keep moving forward. Things can change quickly in this division, especially with a three-game week, so it’s all a waste of time if you don’t back it up now, this next week.”
Though the Canaries may have lost their last five league games, failed to win at home yet this season and boss Liam Manning under increasing pressure, Giles says the players will take nothing for granted and expect the home side to come out all guns blazing.
“Every time I’ve been to Norwich, I’ve always had a tough game there,” he confessed. “They still have some brilliant players, in my opinion. Still a really good side. The run of form they’re in is tough; we’ve all been there, and I know how it feels, but we can’t take it for granted. We have to go there with a solid game plan, and I think the start will be key, but we need that consistency throughout the game.
“If you give them any sort of momentum with the players they’ve got, they can still hurt you. Liam Manning’s a good coach, he did well at Bristol City last year, and I’m under no illusions that it’s going to be a tough game, and the lads know that as well from experiences we’ve had before.
“We’ll go there with a game plan, and I’m sure we’ll execute it properly. What I like about this team, I’ll be honest, is that I feel like we’re finding a way to win at times.
“I’ve played in a lot of teams, especially in the Championship, and I think sometimes you are gonna have to suffer at times. If I revert back to maybe last season, for example, the games we’ve come away with things where we’ve held on at the end, we might not have got it, and that’s what I like at the moment, the boys are finding a way, and we’re sticking together and we’re grinding through things.
“It’s always gonna be difficult every game we play in at the end of the day, but I think if we can keep that going with it, keep starting well and get that consistency, still finding a way, I think we’ll we’ll be alright.”
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