Norwich City must reach heights they have yet to scale under Dean Smith to cause another upset against Manchester City.
The Canaries had won four of their previous five games before being held by Crystal Palace 1-1 in the Premier League at Carrow Road in midweek.
Norwich reached the summit when these clubs met back in September 2019, but Smith accepts few outside the camp give his relegation battlers any chance.
“We all know we probably have to get 10 or 11 players delivering eight or nine out of 10 performances. This is a challenge but it is an opportunity as well,” he said. “In my experience all players want to pit themselves against the best, and they're getting the opportunity. I believe my players are looking forward to it. Hopefully you get the right performance and have a bit of fortune.
"The challenge is simple. You've got to be better than your opposite number you're up against. You have to work extremely hard. There's no substitute for that. But you've got to show quality on the ball when you've got that.
“The players know that, they understand that. We might have to suffer without the ball but as long as the ball is going where we can channel it, then we can still be good without the ball.
"You can exert control of the game without the football, and we've been good at that in recent weeks. We're full of respect for them, but certainly not fear.”
Brentford rival Thomas Frank labelled Pep Guardiola the best coach of the modern era, prior to his side’s midweek 2-0 league defeat.
Smith stopped short of such a eulogy, but has enjoyed his previous tussles with Guardiola at Aston Villa, including a spirited defeat in the 2020 League Cup final and a couple of narrow league losses since.
“I am not the only one who's tried to study what he has done at Manchester City. But he's got top class players as well who can carry out their instructions,” said Smith. “He's proved time and time again what a top coach he is. I've been fortunate to meet him a few times and he is a top guy as well.
“We've had some really tight games against them, and that last away game I got sent off. In my defence, they did change the offside rule two days later.
"I have always felt if you could put pressure on in certain points of a game you can win against them.
"Whenever I've faced them before I felt you could go and win the game, and I do so now. It's going to be tough, and we need to get a lot of top performances.”
Norwich’s recent upturn has been founded on adding more threat at the top end of the pitch. But Smith understands the pitfalls of such an approach facing some of the best attacking midfielders in the world.
“We've recently gone 4-4-2 and given up an extra man in midfield, which probably cost us more possession of the ball in the last few games,” he said. “But we've become more of a potent threat to the opposition, and leaving two players around their centre half makes it harder for teams to advance.
"We're obviously not going to give anybody a heads up.
“The players have earned the right now to be a team that's hard to beat. They work extremely hard, they have resilience and they give less big chances away. We've got to show better quality on the ball than we did against Crystal Palace in midweek, but we have shown that over the last few weeks. We’ve also got some big players coming back to fitness.
"(Billy) Gilmour and (Mathias) Normann to name a couple. Having that strength in depth certainly makes us a little bit more a bit more potent. But we know it's a big challenge.”
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