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The Starman Signing Another New Deal Is Further Proof That Norwich Know Exactly What They Are Doing

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Max Aarons has signed another new contract with Norwich City, the club have announced.

In what has been a summer of new contracts for the Canaries, it’s arguably the smartest business of all to tie down what look like being international quality stars to long term deals.

If you are even a casual observer in the football transfer market, you will see that the fees being paid for what one might term an average Premier League player, are literally sky-high.

A recent example is West Brom having an £8m bid for Cardiff’s Kenneth Zahore accepted yesterday.

Zahore has 23 goals in 77 Championship appearances but managed just 1 goal in 19 Premier League appearances last season.

Eight million Pounds, just let that sink in. What is Teemu Pukki going to be currently worth?!

If a player also happens to be English and being sold by one English club to another then there’s a premium on that too.

Strangely though, an English player being sold abroad, which is fairly rare these days, doesn’t attract quite such a premium fee.

The best example of that this summer is Aaron Wan-Bissaka and Kieron Trippier, both English, both right-backs.

I know there is seven years difference in their age, Aaron is 21 and Kieron is 28 but the latter has 16 full caps for his country and shone as England’s right back at the last World Cup.

Spurs though, have moved him on and sold him to Atletico Madrid for just over £20m (depending on which paper you read). Wan-Bissaka Meanwhile, has gone to Manchester United for £45m+, which is a lot of money.

Going back to City, getting our young starlets and those who are a little older, tied down to long-term deals safeguards the future of the club. There is literally no rush for these boys, like Max Aarons, Ben Godfrey, Jamal Lewis and Emi Buendia to move to a bigger club.

These lads were all given their chance by Norwich City and you could argue that they owe the club for that. Don’t get me wrong, the big money moves will come and with them, the big pay cheques too.

All in good time.

Those very same players look set to be given the biggest stage of all this season to perform and announce themselves to the country and to the world. It’s not this summer that anyone need worry about hostile transfer bids, it’s the next.

With a year under their belts in the English top-flight, whether City survive or not, I’m fully expecting the likes of Max, Ben, Jamal and Emi to have made us feel proud this time next summer.

That’s most likely when the trouble will start.

I say trouble, but it’s the reality of football. Players from smaller teams do well and attract the attention of bigger teams. The bigger teams make huge offers and the smaller teams are unable to resist those offers.

It’s just the way of the world.

Then though, those bigger clubs are going to have to pay the sort of transfer fees that will keep Norwich City solvent for several seasons to come.

Assuming they all have good seasons, what are these players going to be worth?

You could conceivably sell just two of them and make near on the value of a whole season’s worth of Premier League TV revenue. If invested wisely, that will mean a very bright future for the Canaries.

You don’t want to do what Spurs did after selling Gareth Bale though.

They bought four of five players with only Christian Eriksen really working out. The whole world will know you’ve got money in your pocket too and bump up the prices for the players you want.

“Norwich have just sold Buendia and Aarons. They’ve got a hundred million in their pocket. Happy days!”

I’m saying £100 million but it could be that. James Maddison has been valued at £60m currently, I think I saw that on Sky Sports News and we know what Wan-Bissaka went for. Those two are the benchmarks in their position and at their age now.

Except that doesn’t look like being the way City will go about things.

Yes, they may have little choice but to sell some players in the future. If you’re Max Aarons in a year or two’s time and say, Tottenham come calling again then you’re going to be interested in Champions League football, a triple your salary deal and playing with Harry Kane and Dele Alli.

I say again, because I understand that Spurs bid double figures for Aarons last January, which prompted a new deal for the lad then.

Norwich though are quietly assembling a number of very highly rated young players to join their U23s with the idea being that a conveyor belt of top talent is always moving to step up and replace those that inevitably end up leaving.

Don’t be dismayed by that because if Norwich are to become an established Premier League side, then without billionaire owners, this is the best way to go about it.

This is the vision of Stuart Webber and it’s very interesting that his old club, Huddersfield Town dispensed with their own academy after Webber left, leaving them reliant on buying players in.

That doesn’t look the smartest move to me.

Norwich City have moved quickly and easily to tie down their brightest young stars this summer, meaning that there will be no Nathan Redmond type scenarios whereby a bright young player only has 12 months left on his contract.

Further proof, if it were needed, that City are finally going about things the right way.

OTBC

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Editor - a forty something Canary, who has been following Norwich for 30 odd years. Family man with wife, kids, dog and a love of sport. Fan of Boxing, Vale 46, F1 and Rock.

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