If last Saturday hosted the biggest East Anglian derby, this knocks it off its perch.

Last weekend the atmosphere was incredible, radio breaking and overall deafening. Last weekend there were two goals not of quality but which inspired wild celebrations and there was a half decent match going on to.

All that was there, but now it will be doubled, trebled or quadrupled because who ever wins at Carrow Road on Saturday lunchtime will be going to Wembley. Away goals count for nothing, the form books count for nothing. What counts is the performance on the day from either Norwich or Ipswich.

TEAM NEWS

Norwich City

Alex Neil has no need to make any changes from last Saturday's 1-1 draw at Portman Road. Lewis Grabban is still unavailable due to suspension but if the Canaries reach the final, his 3 game ban will be over in time. 

Both Nathan Redmond and Cameron Jerome need to be wary of their starting spots after they were replaced in the second half last week by Wes Hoolahan and Gary Hooper.

Ipswich Town

Mick McCarthy's inspired loan signing Luke Varney will miss out after he had successful injury on a ruptured Achilles, putting him out of contention for six months.

Paul Anderson came on for Varney due to injury and scored the equaliser so it would be a shock if wasn't McCarthy's choice to start.
Jay Tabb and Kevin Bru will have to fight for the same position.

Predicted line-ups
Norwich: Ruddy; Whitaker, Martin, Bassong, Olsson; Tettey, Howson, Hoolahan, Dorrans, Johnson; Hooper.

Ipswich: Bialkowski; Chambers, Berra, Smith, Mings; Anderson, Skuse, Bishop, Tabb; Sears, Murphy.

FIRST LEG

This is how VAVEL's Arsenal Editor Conor De Smith summed up the game:

"The most crucial East Anglian derby since the League Cup semi-final in 1985, fierce rivals Ipswich Town and Norwich City produced a score draw in a bid to rejoin the elite of English football.

An enthralling first-half saw the only two goals of the game, with a Jonny Howson volley opening the scoring 41 minutes in. An injury to Luke Varney saw the officials signal for six minutes added time, this enabled the home side to grab an equaliser through substitute Paul Anderson."

PRE-MATCH COMMENTS

Norwich City boss, Alex Neil: 

"The first thing which has come into my head (hearing him say that), is I might call him a name in the tunnel and see if that upsets him," Neil said at a press conference after being told that Ipswich midfielder Skuse had said he would rather people shout nice things at him than abuse him in the derby.

"It is part and parcel of the game. If he is going to get upset by people calling him names or heckling, he is probably in the wrong sport.

"That is (a) relatively surprising (comment). I am sure he probably said it tongue in cheek, I would like to think.

"(Last week) I was signing things at Ipswich for Ipswich fans and the ones behind them were booing me while I was doing it, so that is all part of the game, it is that whole sort of pantomime villain type thing.

"But the good thing is (these games) are played in the right spirit by both teams but equally are still really, really determined to beat each other and that is what makes it such a great game.

"I am hoping we can create some noise for the players to get them fired up - they won't necessarily need that, but every little bit helps," Neil told Norwich City TV.

"The more noise we can create, to hopefully put a doubt in the Ipswich players' minds, the better.

"If they get the real backing of the fans, who desperately want it as much as the players are, then we are all in it together, and certainly if we go down that route we have got a better chance."

"We know exactly what is coming and we know exactly how we are going to go about trying to win the game.

"Now it is just about performing on the day and making sure we are completely focused.

"We are really determined and just can't wait for it come."

Ipswich Town boss, Mick McCarthy: 

“We will have to put the lads in the Big Brother house if we don’t want them getting caught up in the hype. Or maybe in the jungle,” he said. “I get that you don’t want them getting hyped up but you can’t tell me that my lads will not be at home thinking about this every single day this week. This is even bigger now – one game before Wembley – and you have to deal with it. I have experienced players, men who won’t worry about it. You can’t protect them from everything. I won’t change anything in my planning. We’ll be off Wednesday, but the rest of the week we’ll prepare like we have done all season. If we start doing something different players will become unhinged.”

McCarthy said he could feel the first leg was a special occasion, “It was a fantastic atmosphere. The hairs on the back of my neck were standing up when we walked out and I’ve not had that for a while to be honest,” he said. “It was electric out there and hopefully there will be more of that to come. It was a fair result in the end. We shaded it in the first half, but after 47 games, we had some tired players out there – they did as well.”

On his opposite number he said he thought he was 'a nice fella', "I enjoyed his company after the game last Saturday, and I enjoyed his comments and what he said.

"I can generally judge the person by that as much as by meeting them and he's a nice guy - a nice fella."

But he's desperate to beat 'a nice fella', 

"I think we can go there and win.

I might as well not bother if I didn't think we could. We played really well last week, there's nothing between us on that performance."

Former-Norwich boss, Paul Lambert: 

“I think they’ll win promotion. Norwich is a great club with a great fan base and they are certainly equipped to get there,” he said. “Manager Alex Neil has done fantastically well. I don’t really know him but he has handled himself really well and kept the players focused.

“The derbies have huge intensity. I never knew what to expect and I was suspended for the first one when I was there, but we went to Portman Road and won 5-1 the next time and it was massive for us.

“I know how important it is for Norwich fans and Alex will know that too. It would be great to see them go up for the people there and some players who have been there for a while.”