"Tonight's match is one that we should win. Not because we have any given right to win the game but because we could and should win it on the basis we are a decent outfit," he told the official City website.
"It doesn't matter that we have beaten Chelsea, and run Arsenal and Newcastle close. The fact is that we go into this game having lost our last Premiership match and we want to put that right."
City missed out on a great chance to move up the table at Newcastle last time out, and with the table so close, James knows the Blues cannot afford to pass up on another opportunity - City will go ninth with victory over the Canaries.
"One of the frustrations with losing to Newcastle was that if the result had gone the other way we would have gone above them.
"That is how close things are in the middle of the table and we don't want teams like that gaining too much distance on us and we want together points as quickly as possible so we don't have the fight we had last season and that we definitely don't want this time.
"It is a big game because there are three points at stake. Norwich haven't won a game yet and we cannot have any sympathy for them or let ourselves become their first victims. I don't mind them winning but not against us."