West Ham have made an opening £12m bid for James Maddison report The Guardian
It`s the news all Canary fans have been dreading, although surely Stuart Webber will demand a much higher fee than that for the jewel in the Norwich crown.
Everyone of a yellow and green persuasion knows what Madders is.
He`s a match winner, a player who makes things happen and who can be shut out of a game for 85 minutes before producing a moment of magic to win it, just like he did at Bristol City a couple of weeks ago. That doesn`t happen often though, he`s usually involved in everything good about Norwich.
He scores goals and he makes goals in open play and he`s a dead ball specialist too. The sky is literally the limit for this boy.
The problem is that the whole football world also know this and the vultures are circling.
I do not think for one second that we will be able to hang onto James Maddison. We took him from his home town club for around £3.5m plus add-ons and in the near future, someone will take him from us. It`s the football circle of life.
The biggest question is whether City sell now or in the summer? I don`t actually think we`ll gain much by selling him now, in January.
If we keep him, he will continue to shine, score more goals and his value will increase. Then, in the summer a proper bidding war can be encouraged with the likes of Spurs, Liverpool and West Ham, who are clearly trying to steal a march on their rivals.
There is only one remote chance that we might be able to keep this lad and that is if an unlikely, but still mathematically possible, promotion charge is completed.
Even then, it`d probably be tough but the ball would be back in the Canary court. I know that is highly unlikely but hey, we`ve just signed some new players and who knows, they might just give the club a lift.
This is assuming that Dennis Srbeny is more Grant Holt than Ricky van Wolfswinkel.
OTBC