The visit of Norwich City to Elland Road on Sunday is likely to have huge implications on the Premier League relegation battle.
The Canaries find themselves in a position that will have felt all too familiar in the last few seasons.
They are bottom of the table and will need an almighty effort in their final 11 games of the campaign to stay in the division.
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The Whites will be desperate to pile the misery on Dean Smith’s side on Sunday when the two relegation-threatened sides do battle in West Yorkshire as they have their own precarious position to worry about.
With just 17 points on the board after 27 games, you would imagine Norwich will have to, at least, double their current points tally before the end of the season to have any chance of staying up.
Speaking ahead of a huge week at the bottom of the Premier League, Tim Krul drew on Leicester City’s great escape from the 2014/15 as inspiration for his side’s bid to beat the drop.
“We all know how huge a task it is, but Leicester have done it before,” he said. “Eleven games is 33 points, we know we need to win five maybe six of those.
“We are still playing a lot of teams around us and we need to drag Leeds in. We still have Newcastle, Brighton and Burnley, so there are definitely games, but it is easier said than done because this [game against Brentford] was a game we expected to win.”
If Smith is able to keep his Norwich side in the Premier League this season, it will go down as one of the greatest escapes in top-flight history.
The gap to safety, which doesn’t look too bad, is currently five points but a handful of the teams above them have the advantage of games in hand.
If they are to stay up, Norwich will have to leapfrog at least three teams and Krul believes they have the quality to do exactly that.
“I understand that when you have 17 points people like to say, ‘You are already down’, but we know we have got that quality and it needs to fall for us because you can’t give up,” he added.
“We need to start looking at ourselves and not hoping for other teams to keep losing. If you start winning, the pressure is on those teams who are looking over their shoulders.
“That’s what we need to start doing and Leeds is one of those teams, but we need to win against a couple of teams where we don’t expect to win as well.
“Thursday against Chelsea is a massive task. Those games where we might do something unexpected. We are all looking at the teams around us, but to beat a team like Chelsea might be the spark we need.”
As Krul alluded to, Thomas Tuchel’s side visit Carrow Road on Thursday evening just a few days before Norwich make the trip to face Leeds.
It will certainly be viewed by Whites supporters as a must-win game against Smith’s side who really should not be able to go above Jesse Marsch’s men before the end of the season.
They are already six points behind Leeds, a gap Sunday’s hosts will be hoping to maintain, and extend, over the coming weeks.
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