We might be in the middle of one of those rather dull international breaks but things at Norwich City have been quite exciting over the last couple of days.
The contract extensions for Louis Thompson, Jamal Lewis and Max Aarons are brilliant news. These three young lads have already established themselves in the first team squad with Aarons and Lewis being first choice in their positions.
Youth.#ncfc pic.twitter.com/WyLGFKPcJB
— Norwich City FC (@NorwichCityFC) October 10, 2018
Whether we can hang on to them if they continue to develop at the same pace as they have already is a big question but Stuart Webber has insured the club against their potential loss by tying them down to these five-year contracts.
I’ve read a few negative comments on social media about the club simply “preparing to sell” these lads which strike me as being a bit odd. I mean talk about damned if you do or damned if you don’t!
Surely it’s eminently sensible to have your best players and top young prospects on long contracts, isn’t it?
It doesn’t matter which club you are, there are always richer clubs than you that can afford to buy your best players if they want to. It even happened to Barcelona when PSG came calling for Neymar and blew the world’s transfer record out of the water.
While Norwich City are still a Championship club then they will not have the ability to keep players if other clubs come in for them. Even if we were in the Premier League, if Chelsea offered £30m odd for one of these young lads then we couldn’t withstand that sort of offer, it’s just simple economics.
Personally, I think it’s an excellent move by the club and it’s good that the players want to commit to working with Daniel Farke. All three were glowing in their praise of the opportunity given to them by Farke and his methods, when quoted on the club’s website.
In other news, the club announced some desperately disappointing news for another young Canary on Thursday when they broke the news that Diallang Jaiyesimi has done his Anterior Cruciate Ligament.
Diallang Jaiyesimi will miss the rest of the season after rupturing his ACL. #ncfc
Full story ➡️ https://t.co/szWlnFzsbf pic.twitter.com/4CQALp8Qpy
— Norwich City FC (@NorwichCityFC) October 11, 2018
The young winger was on loan at Yeovil Town and suffered the nasty injury during last weekend’s League Two match with MK Dons. He will have an operation very soon with a view to him being fit for the start of next season.
Another City player who has gone under the knife is Kenny McLean who broke the news that he has had a successful operation on his Twitter feed on Thursday afternoon.
On the mend after surgery this week! No photo confirmation of me in a gown full of morphine after it so I get it if you don’t believe me 👍🏻
— Kenny McLean (@kennymclean66) October 11, 2018
McLean suffered ankle ligament damage in the Carabao Cup win over Stevenage in August and hasn’t played since. The original time frame for him to get back playing was about a month but the most recent update from Daniel Farke was that he was still feeling some pain and that this was a concern.
It seems that whatever the problem is, a decision has now been taken regarding surgery.
I imagine that we’ll hear more in Farke’s pre-Forest presser next week.
Before I sign off, don’t forget that England are playing Croatia on Friday night (7.45pm) which means that James Maddison could make his full senior debut.
Tear it up, Madders!
OTBC