Transfer goss and rumours, Summer 2016.

I hadn't been worried about this season until I started thinking a little harder, as you did, about where our goals would be coming from! Lets hope the Murphs and Canos can replicate the goalscoring form they showed last year, Maddison is more of a provider than a goalscorer I believe. Carlton Morris maybe?

 

Blimey I hadn't realised the suburbs of Norwich stretched that far these days

 

You´re absloutely right, using Fulham as an example, Melchy, but I´d still prefer to give it a try. Accept a half a dozen or so years down here, completely revamp the squad with younger players, keep Neil if he´s prepared to work that way, if not, find someone who is, and then have a crack at the PL again. I can´t honestly believe it would be any worse than our futile efforts recently, and just going down the same route again, seems unlikely to bring the sort of success most people want. But no doubt we´ll be wiser soon enough.

 

I agree that I wouldn't be adverse to not getting promoted this year, as long as it meant we attempted to develop the youth and build a stronger young team, however I'd expect to see us pushing or achieving promotion 1 to 3 years after that, otherwise the project would register as failure to an extent for me. If we looked at half a dozen years to achieve promotion our "youth" players would be the same age as the squad now, which would seem kind of pointless.

 

My argument against that is the way the gap between the Premier League and the championship is growing. The money being thrown around at the bottom of the Premier League is phenomenal. 2-3 £10m+ signings isn't really something those teams would blink at. Next season would be bad enough to compete, but once lower Prem sides have had several seasons of being able to sign that quality of player, it becomes so much harder to bridge the gap. I'd love to be able to rely on a crop of our own youngsters to propel us into the Premier League and survival, but can we really produce maybe 5-6 players who can win promotion and then compete in the Prem as the equivalent to those £10m signings?

 

Yep, perhaps a half a dozen years was a bit on the high side, but it was only really intended as an example - a number of years then, would have been better.

 

Sorry RBF, no disrespect but the most polite word I can use here is 'naive'. Football has moved on from leather balls, muddy pitches and jumpers for goalposts. The only way a club like ours could ever hope to compete at the top level is with major inward investment. All this building for the future with youth bollocks means is you become a feeder club for one of the big boys. As long as Delia clings to power the most we can hope for is more of the same and that's what pisses me off !

 

Try ONE

 

So we've gazumped Chrissy and are now likely to sign Pritchard!

 

Championship goals last time (current team in brackets):
Bradders 15/44 (Derby last year: 5/31)
Redmond 4/43
Hooper 12/30 (SW last year 13/29)
Grabban 13/42 (Bournemouth in PL 0/15)
Total: 48 goals

Brady (if he stays): ? (3 goals last year)
Jarvis (last year 1/19)
Canos (Brentford 7/38)
Josh Murphy (MK 5/42)
Jacob Murphy (Cov in L1 9/40)
Naismith ?
New Striker(s) ?

Hard to make an exact comparison, but BJ's record at Derby was less impressive and Redmond was lower than I remembered. IMO, Canos and the Murphys will score goals, given a chance. Naismith seems ready to go and could score at least 8-10 goals in this league. Wes will also score goals, with a few more from CM as well. The key will be Wes, Naismith and the wide players as well as the goals from any new strikers which would need to be about 20 goals (or what we were expecting from McCormack and what Hooper and Grabban contributed last time). Much will also depend on whether Jerome can score around the 21 goals he had last time.

EDIT: Pritchard would also help!

 

Getting Pritchard would be a great gain for us. Always wanted him here since he shredded us at CR in Jan 2015.

It's a start - need the elusive striker now and another CB (still think we need to support Klose here).

 

Vital Norwich (via a Brighton newspaper) reckon our approach for Pritchard is "an apparent last-ditch illegal approach" http://www.norwich.vitalfootball.co.uk/article.asp?a=454868

 

True, a bit out of the way but worth it

 

It's actually the Brighton paper claiming it's 'illegal'. Can't see why it would be.

 

Would be happy to miss out on McCormack if it meant we signed Pritchard & Assombalonga I still think we would need another striker and a CB, possibly on season long loans for a PL team, but not Wisdom. Anyone think of any possible candidates ?

 

But where will he fit into the team, who will be forced to make way? I know he improves on the squad but he's hardly a necessity such as a CB or ST.

 

Balotelli might be going cheap

 

Jonathan Kodjia, Assombalonga, Pritchard and a CB would leave us with a great squad!

Bet we get one of them at best :-/

 

I hear what you're saying RBF and I'd rather we used this season to revamp the squad as opposed to challenging for promotion. Let's release the likes of Whittaker, Martin and Turner and give the ones who finished the 2nd half against Coventry a chance to show what they can do in the hustle and bustle of the Championship (I believe Josh got player of the season at MK Dons!!!), so he at least has to be in the squad and even starting some games.

I'm relieved we didn't allow ourselves to be 'held to ransom' over McCormack and I'm not holding my breath for a less expensive option to appear on the radar. I'm sure it's a combination of factors as to why we can't recruit players of the desired quality for us to mount a serious challenge for promotion.

I'd like to see us at least try to see how we fare with 'building for the future' - I'm sure it can't be any worse than some of the trash and soft goals we've endured these last few seasons - we might even score a few goals as well.

 

As far as I know he's an attacking mid who can also play out wide. A bit like Howson, Hoolahan, Naismith and Maddison, then.
3 of the 4 have been oddly deployed wide, in far from their best positions, how long before the same happens with young Maddison.
But, as Suffolk says, it's not a position where we're crying out for reinforcements just now - though I can think of a few that are