I see Celtic have today completed the signing of Amido Balde. I would think that almost certainly indicates that Hooper is leaving.
Looks like a quick bidding war between us and Hull now. £5m might do it but it could also depend if Hooper has a preference and what wages the clubs would offer. This signing could complete a pretty awesome striker line up for us, let's see how the weekend plays out.
i would like us to sign Hooper. He is a young English striker who I think has earnt the right to play in the EPL. I think some of our fans forget about the size of our club and I think Hooper would be a good fit for us at this stage in his career. I know the SPL isnt the greatest standard but he still has experience of playing in the CL and cup finals, you cant put a price on that and its not something that many players have. I think he would be a good signing and I would be disapointed if we lost out to Hull when we have had serious interest in him before.
def would be a decent signing. he appears to be a hungry type of player. after playing at Scunny (just up the road from me) Norwich would seem even more of a paradise than it is. and Hull is worse than Scunny.
If we ever do sign Hooper a part of me is going to be disappointed. If you ever read the fans comments on any Hooper transfer speculation article its hilarious! And if he actually signs that will spell the end to these articles :-( Celtic fans get furious, they just cant accept that the lure of the PL and the money it offer is enough of a reason for him to want to move. Its brings up the big club vs smaller club arguments which can go on and on. I find it amusing.
I certainly would like this to be sorted soon as it has been dragging on for most of the year in one form or another. It is all part of the pecking order though Scottish Canary and if he was to come and do well at CR it would then be a stepping stone to a larger fish higher up the PL food chain. Sadly that is why the glass ceiling will always keep teams within the same parameters unless they get a significant change of circumstances - i.e. massive investment or increase in attendance / gate receipts. It took the oil money to let Man City be a player again and the same with Chelski.
Scottish - I suppose it depends on what motivates a player. Do you want Champions' League football and medals every season or do you want to play for a mid-table side in the EPL with no serious prospect of silverware or European football? At Hooper's age he already has the medals and you would think that he has sufficient faith in his ability to think that if he can engineer a move to a "lesser" EPL team, have one or two good seasons then he could be looking at signing for one of the big boys getting a huge pay rise plus the chance of silverware and playing for his country. If he does come to either us or Hull it will be a personal gamble for him as he knows that either he will reach for the stars or end up plying his trade in the lower half of the Prem or top half of the Championship. The big club/little club thing is influenced by the distortion of the Sky money. Regardless of what division they are in Celtic are a huge club. Look at Rangers getting 40k attendances in the Scottish 3rd division - should a similar fate befall Celtic I am sure they would still have massive support. Realsitically Norwich will never have the level of support Celtic do but currently we have significantly more financial muscle which means we can compete with them for players. Thier lure is medals and Champions League ours is cash and the prospect of a move to a bigger club (plus Norwich is a very pleasant city to live in).
i know exactly what you mean! i spent a lot of time up in scotland a few years ago and people in glasgow have a real problem with the premier league!! they are savage about it, and they cannot seem to understand the draw of the thing. nobody is mental enough to think that hull or norwich are bigger clubs than celtic, but its the lure of the premier league which elevates clubs like ourselves and hull above the glasgow giants in the grand scheme of things. AND THEY KNOW IT. and they absolutely hate it!! yes they can offer european football, though they have no real chance of winning the champions league, but if a club comes in for a player from glasgow, the chances are the pulling power of the premier league, with its money and 'supposed' glamour nearly always swing it ahead of winning something every year. i say 'supposed', because i do not believe the premier league is a good league - i think it's brilliantly marketed but the talent on show is currently at quite a low ebb, though this may change with the new influx of tv money allowing better signings from abroad. celtic are good at finding rough gems in the championship or in other lesser european leagues who are deemed 'not quite good enough for the premier league', let them have the buzz of winning things and playing for a big club in front of 50k fans, but once the glory has been achieved on a regular basis what's the point, so selling them on for a profit to top flight clubs down south. that is now celtic's place in the football pyramid, there's nothing wrong with that, they make money on many players they bring in, but their fans can't stand it! fact is, norwich or even hull are a bigger pull for players these days because of marketing and money.
there is an old US military saying."do you want to soar with the eagles or stay on the ground and peck **** with the chickens". very appropriate for Hoopers position.
i'm very confident hooper will come here this summer. toivonen, not so confident - maybe 40/60 against at the moment, 50/50 at best
I am sorry but I am getting thoroughly bored with this whole transfer window and it hasn't even officially opened yet. We allegedly offered £8m for Hooper in Jan and it is quite clear that a bid now of £5m or certainly £6m would get him - ffs if he is what Hughton thinks he needs and he can get him for £3m less than he was prepared to pay 5 months ago then stop haggling over a few thousand and go and get him before somebody else does. We had this in Jan - raising our bid until we ran out of time and, in a panic, bought Bechio. Same with this Swede who is quite clearly pissing everybody about waiting for a better offer from a bigger Club before he condecends to give us his final answer sometime in July - which probably means he won't end up here and by then a lot of viable alternatives will have found new Clubs. In my humble opinion, and I'm sorry if it offends some, Hughton is a ditherer. He wants A if he can't get B but would take C if he can get the price down. We are turning into a mini Arsenal - loads of big statements, loads of press conferences, loads of publically proclaimed targets, loads of haggling, a series of failed attempts and a couple of last minute panic buys. Lambert didn't do that. He gave McNally a list of targets and if immediately it was certain that option A was either unavailable or unaffordable he moved onto option B. That way Lambert had virtually his full squad assembled by the time they returned to pre-season training. Interesting to see that Villa signed their 2nd and 3rd young talented continental players yesterday so please don't tell me that things can't move forward quickly in the modern game. No doubt I will get a lot of anger and flak over these comments but it represents my genuinely held belief.
I hope so to. I think any sensible Celtic fan knows exactly why Hooper would come to Norwich or Hull, but their heart just cant allow them to say the actual words. From my own personal perspective i did all my schooling in Scotland primary and high school during 90's/early 00's - so it was always a bit of a joke to people that i supported lil ol Norwich. How the tables have turned and i'm still having to get used to this smug feeling
you aren't half a bag of misery sometimes i cannot understand your rant at all. every club tries to get the best possible deal for every player they go for - that's common sense. oh and we never bid £8m in january - sky sports backtracked at the time and said it was a hoax. we never even got close to £6m according to celtic. as you say, the window isn't even open yet so no need to panic - most players and managers (including our own, i hasten to add) are on holiday anyway!
also, re: 1950's rant, hughton will not have dithered - the system will have been the same as it was under lambert. hughton gives mcnally (and the board) the list of potential signings in order of priority (most probably before the season even ended) and mcnally and his team will get on with trying to do the deals. the reason its proving harder is because we are trying to purchase a higher calibre of players than lambert was. we all know what a great club norwich is but potential new signings often need some time to check out the area or club or do some research as they don't necessarily know much about us, especially the foreign players. also, better players will inevitably think they can find a bigger club or higher wage payer than us - that's one of the pitfalls of being a relatively small fish in a large pond. signing players takes time whether you like it or not. they don't just magically happen.
1950 Haven't we already broken our transfer record before the window has even opened? If we have also already agreed a fee with PSV for Toivonen surely CH can hardly be accused of dithering can he? We have cleared the decks of 10 sets of wages as well. Has CH made public who his targets are? I don't think so. We know that we bid for Hooper in January but other than that and toivonen I couldn't tell you any other player we are officially interested in or have made a bid for so we are hardly talking big to deflect from doing nothing.
what does it matter what lambert is doing anyway? have you seen the other clubs! most have barely made a signing yet. in fact, on the 1st of june, norwich were the fourth biggest spenders IN EUROPE for the 2013-14 season. if that isn't getting ahead of the game, i don't know what is. the list read as: 1 monaco 2 barcelona 3 bayern munich 4 norwich city 5 borussia dortmund obviously its all changed now!
This^ Also, 1950 is conveniently forgetting that quite a number of Paul Lambert's signings in the end failed to make the grade. It is easy enough to sign young players who others aren't prepared to gamble on. If you gamble, you win some, and lose some.
