In a way we should thank QPR, they certainly moved proceedings on! From what I've seen of Hooper he looks like he moves off the ball very well and has a good finish on him. Happy to have him here if all the talk is true. Though we're unlikely to play it much next season, RvW and Hooper up front would be a pretty mean attack! If we now have the cash and go in for Quags that'd be something else!
If he comes here he has genuinely picked football over money. There's no doubt QPR could offer him higher wages than us. I think he's got his eyes on that England spot. Currently he hasn't got an awful lot of competition, England's strikers are all pretty **** atm.
Were we to get Hooper I reckon we'll see a lot more of two up front than previously. I cannot imagine that he would come here in the knowledge that he would be first reserve to RvW. Might as well earn a fortune poaying for QPR in the Championship as either move would stall his career. I also don't think that we are in a position to have a £5m or an £8m striker on the bench week in week out. Id like to think that CH will finds a system to play our best XI as often as possible - whether this is utilising Rvw or Hooper as a link player I don't know but at least it would be a nice problem for CH to have, how to fit in all your £5m players.
Read this quote from the BBC comments and weep, Beefy Where the **** do these deluded people crawl out from?
I was trying to figure out which formation we'll see and have to agree that logic dictates that RvW and the 'new' GH will both be in the starting 11 - at least at home!!!!!
I put this on the pre-season thread, but it's useful here as well: Having watched the match last night, I think Redmond could become a really good player this year (the MotM for City, IMO). Butterfield also looked good in his 20 minute cameo. The 3 minutes of highlights below has their shots (and notice how Redmond hits the bar from the right side when he's actually playing LW): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xwi03D5_T84
How about this one - "Wolfswinkel, Becchio and now Hooper. Norwich may have a strike force to be reckoned with next season, with Chris Hughton in charge, I can see them getting into the top half of the table and maybe into the Europa league if they do really well. And I'm so glad that he is not going to go to QPR for the money but to Norwich for the experience of playing world class teams, good for him."
that's the link to the stream, bor, here's the highlights https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYmp3jogA6w
Well if Hooper signing does get confirmed, by my reckoning we will have spent in excess of £ 24M in transfer fees alone if you include the RvW deal which was alledgedly from last season's budget ! Can you believe that just four years ago we didn't have a pot to piss in and that we nearly went to the wall !!!
RvW came to prominence in the Netherlands playing "in the hole". It was only at Sporting that he played primarily as out-and-out striker (which role he is quoted as saying he prefers). Neither Hooper nor RvW can be called conventional centre forwards; if Hooper does sign I think we gain even more in versatility.
Apparently he's already agreed personal terms http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/...news/celtic-striker-gary-hooper-snubs-2087992 I've heard the Daily Record is reasonably reliable too
Hot news from the BBC sportsday page - "BBC Sport learns that Gary Hooper is expected to sign for Norwich later today after Celtic accepted a bid in the region of £5m for the striker. The Scottish champions had also accepted a bid from QPR on Wednesday but the Englishman wants to play in the Premier League. He is due to have a medical later this afternoon."
