Norwich City's under-21s kick off their Premier League International Cup campaign this evening when Sparta Prague visit Carrow Road.

The young Canaries welcome Sparta to their home stadium in the first of four group games in the tournament, which is designed to pit English clubs against the best of their European counterparts.

All four of City's group games will take place at the stadium, with Johannes Hoff Thorup's former club Nordsjaelland visiting in November before PSV Eindhoven's December trip. The group stage ends in January with a game against Hertha Berlin.

The group of eight teams will be ranked based on their performance in their four games, with only fixtures between Premier League 2 clubs and international sides taking place at this stage. The top two teams in each of the four groups will then progress to the quarter-finals.

It all starts for Norwich at 7pm, against a Prague side who are currently 11th in the Czech second tier. They operate as a 'B team' domestically, and have consistently finished mid-table in the Czech National Football League in recent years.

City have also had a mixed start to their season, and are 10th in the 26-team Premier League 2, the top flight of English academy football. They'll hope to replicate an impressive 3-2 win over Southampton on Friday, when Errol Mundle-Smith's brace helped them come back from a 2-0 half-time deficit to claim all three points.

They'll be without Tony Springett, however, who first-team boss Thorup confirmed last week would be out of action until Christmas with a back injury.

Defensive trio Brad Hills, Jonathan Tomkinson and Jaden Warner, who have all started for City's senior team, have been included in the provisional matchday squad. Hills featured in that Saints win, while Tomkinson and Warner have been part of Alan Neilson's development group since the start of the season.

First-team players Gabriel Forsyth, Kaide Gordon and Archie Mair are also in the matchday squad having struggled for competitive minutes in recent weeks.

Finley Welch scored the winner on the south coast and is available, just over six months after he made his first-team debut against Middlesbrough.