Drayton Green has his say on the clubs’ performance in the transfer window…
We all have various opinions on all matters Norwich City but it is generally agreed that Chris Hughton is a cautious manager, selects defensive teams and is usually very late with substitutions and even then they are predetermined and like for like.
It would appear that the board employ the same sort of tactics during transfer windows.
I would imagine that virtually every City fan with be extremely upset and maybe even angry with the window that has just closed.
I would suggest that we have had the worst window out of all 20 premier league clubs and as a result we are now in a worse position for the 14 remaining games than we were for the games to date.
To sum up we have made the following changes :
* Replacing the Number 2 keeper from a promising youth team product to a championship keeper on a short term contract.
* Replacing a championship striker with another championship striker at cost of £200k.
* Loaning an unknown striker / winger who is not available as yet and will miss last 2 games anyway.
Our next 2 opponents have invested heavily in players and we will see what difference this makes in the next 8 or 9 days.
In terms of the tactics of the board, we only have rumours and gossip to go on but I would imagine that the offer for Hooper was way short of £ 9 million, probably not much more than £ 5 million, but the issue here was more about the timing.
It was clear from the outset that Celtic would not want to part with Hooper as he is their prize asset, main striker and needed for the forthcoming champions league games. If we had been serious about wanting him, the price required should have been determined in early January, a maximum offer made and that would have given them a chance to find a replacement.
If the events of last night are to be believed would McNally really be trying to get a deal with hours of window left when Celtic had no time to get a replacement and the only way Celtic had of stopping it would be raising the fee to an unacceptable level. We are not QPR and cannot meet overpriced fees and pay triple the current wages.
The whole saga played out the past month has not even revealed whether Hooper actually wanted to even sign for Norwich as he was not put in a position where he had to.
IF we had signed him it would have been at a massive cost and so was Hughton going to leave out a record signing or the club captain and crowd favourite or was he planning to play them up front together. If he was going to play them together, will the failing to sign a target actually dictate the tactics for the rest of the season?
It would appear so which is extremely worrying.
The pursuit of Graham was a waste of time. He was clearly only going to move due to go back to North East as there was not really any obvious footballing reason.
I believe that the club needed a boost and the overdue signing of a good striker (that should have been here in summer) would have been great for supporters in particular to watch him running out on Saturday at a crucial away game where the opposition will have many expensive transfer window players on show.
The run of poor results has to stop soon or we really will be in trouble and not only have we not signed good strikers but we appear to have wanted to and failed. This may be even worse than not trying at all as it shows that the manager needed one so badly they were prepared to do business in January window and pay over the odds. The result is that fans are going to be even more worried.
The window is shut so the management are now left with a strike force of Holt, Becchio, Jackson, Kamara and Kane (who has now gone as well, Ed).
We will find out if this is adequate in due course but it would appear that we have a championship strike force in the Premier League.