The January transfer window is almost upon us and despite Stuart Webber`s comments about expecting a “quiet window” made in early December, I think we`re all quietly hoping for something to happen to add to the squad, especially in the striking department.
Steven Naismith has been talking about maybe having to move on to get first team football and that would seemingly suit all parties. He`s not likely to play ahead of Maddison, Pritchard, Watkins, Murphy or even Wildschut, so it seems that`s the best solution.
The biggest problem to my mind though, would be his salary, with probably only Premier League clubs ready to take him on, unless City offered to pay a proportion of his wage to help the deal happen. Even then, it`s likely to only be a loan but if it frees up funds to be used elsewhere then that`s a good thing for both club and an experienced player that needs regular football.
There have been several strikers linked to Norwich in the last few days, like young French man, Aldo Kalulu, and Liverpool`s Ben Woodburn. The latter in particular would be a great loan signing but you`d have to think that Chris Coleman`s Sunderland might be leading the pack for him, due to Coleman giving the youngster full International Caps for Wales prior to becoming the Black Cats` manager.
Another name I`ve seen linked is Southampton`s Shane Long but first off, we couldn`t afford his salary and secondly, he`s on a shockingly poor run of form with just 3 goals in his last 44 appearances for the Saints and none of those have come this season.
I`m sure a drop in standard would help him but Southampton are short of strikers themselves unless of course, they reinvest some of the £75m they`re going to get for van Dijk in a new striker. That might make Long surplus to requirements but it still looks highly unlikely he`ll come to Norwich.
The most interesting link over the last few days surrounds a picture that is circulating on Twitter of Daniel Farke meeting with an unknown player.
The initial suggestion was that this was Huddersfield`s German striker, Colin Quaner but another Twitter user, Cory@iwritethings23 has provided a few photos of Eintracht Braunschweig striker/winger, Onel Hernandez. He`s a Cuban born German, aged 24 and he`s made 51 appearances for Eintracht and scored 6 goals for the Bundesliga 2 club.
Check out Cory`s photos for comparison but it looks more like Hernandez than Quaner to me too.
There`s also another winger link this morning with Kilmarnock`s Jordan Jones being reported as interesting City by the Daily Mail as reported by the Pink ‘Un
The 23 year old has 18 months left on his Killie contract and played for Northern Ireland in their World Cup play-off defeat to Switzerland. He`s made 24 appearances for Kilmarnock this season and scored three times.
All this talk of strikers could further be fuelled by this morning`s link of Cardiff City to their ex-player, Cameron Jerome. It seems that third placed Cardiff see Jerome, 31 as the ideal man to join their promotion push and being one of the Canaries` top earners it is reported he can leave in January by the Mirror
So, Mr Webber`s assertion that he`s expecting a quiet window may be quite the opposite because there`s plenty of speculation around.
OTBC