Norwich City are in a relegation fight alongside Aston Villa, Sunderland, Newcastle United and Bournemouth.

BT Sport pundit Steve McManaman has backed Norwich City to stay up as he feels there are three worse teams in the Premier League than the Canaries.

Alex Neil’s side are currently just one point above the drop zone, with Aston Villa, Sunderland and Newcastle United occupying the three relegation spots.

Norwich started the season brightly enough yet a lack of goals – just four in their last seven league games – is a big problem for them and their form suggests a slide into the bottom three could be on the cards.

But McManaman feels Norwich will survive this season, citing Carrow Road as a difficult place to come and naming Aston Villa and at least one of Newcastle and Sunderland to finish below them.

“I think there are worse teams than Norwich in the league, I think they’ll stay up,” McManaman told BT Sport, as can be seen in the above clip. “I think at Carrow Road if they make it a little bit of a fortress they will stay up.”

When pressed on who is worse, he added: “Aston Villa and one of the North East teams will go down”

Norwich have a decent record at Carrow Road, where, in their last three matches, they’ve beaten Swansea City and picked up decent draws against Arsenal and Everton.

The upcoming January transfer window will be telling in terms of survival for the likes of Sunderland, Newcastle and Norwich – and the latter really need a decent goalscorer.

Nathan Redmond currently tops the scoring charts with just four goals, whereas fellow promoted club Watford have Odion Ighalo on ten goals and striker Troy Deeney on five.

Sunderland and Newcastle arguably have squads better equipped than Norwich to stay up, although they’ve both been far too inconsistent thus far and defensive improvements must be made.

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