Marley Watkins will become Norwich City’s first signing of the summer, Vital Norwich understands.
The 26 year old has declined a new contract offer at Oakwell and after scoring ten goals last season, is a wanted man in the Championship.
There has been plenty of speculation about Watkins in recent days and yesterday, a deal was reported as being done by Teamtalk
If you read Vital Norwich, you will know that occasionally I get snippets of information from a well placed source and that they have never sold me a pup yet. I hasten to add that I am not ‘in the know’ but if you follow us here then you’ll know the provenance of these snippets. Watkins’ contract expires on June 30th, so there isn’t likely to be an official announcement for a while yet but trust me, this is a done deal.
You might wonder how the club are signing players without a Head Coach in place?
That would be a fair question, I think you’d agree. It’s certainly a question that plenty of fans are asking.
Well, it seems clear to me that there are two types of decision being made here, football decisions and business decisions.
The release of the seven out of contract players was a business decision and the signing of Marley Watkins is a football decision.
Stuart Webber makes the business decisions which means the Head Coach will need to be consulted on footballing decisions. Signing players that Head coaches don’t want or need is folly and never works.
That suggests to me that the club know exactly who their man is and that he is in regular contact with Stuart Webber. Makes sense doesn’t it? Otherwise, why would Watkins be signed? My source intimated as much to me today.
It also tells me that the new Head Coach will not be David Wagner, not that I ever thought it would be.
Just to be clear, I don’t know who the new gaffer will be and neither does my source, however they did say that an announcement on that isn’t too far away.
OTBC