Amidst the ongoing maelstrom around the future, or otherwise, of Neil Adams there has been a niggle floating around the emptiness of my mind that refuses to go away. It’s been rumbling for a while.
It concerns a horrible knack City have acquired of turning good players into average ones.
In the last two and a bit seasons (since the departure of you know who) how many players have entered the Fine City and, as a result, emerged a better player? Think about it. I’m struggling to name one.
Nathan Redmond possibly?
The ex-Birmingham man is clearly on the radar of a few Premier League clubs and some are reported to be ‘preparing a bid’ for when the January transfer window opens – in truth it would be no surprise if he were tempted away (he clearly remains our most saleable asset) – but would he depart a better player than the one who arrived?
The summer departures of Leroy Fer and Robert Snodgrass had rather more to do with their desire to stay in the Premier League than any significant improvement in them as players; the former’s career path boosted off the back of a fifteen minute cameo in Brazil that included a goal.
Previous Norwich City regimes have been routinely accused of curtailing to the notion of ‘little Norwich’ by ‘selling’ the club as a stepping stone from which lower league players could propel themselves toward the big time; a move to one of the big boys being reward for two or three fruitful years in Norfolk.
And in truth we were, albeit we’re currently under the auspices of a ‘we don’t have to sell’ policy. But the principle of identifying good players and improving them in their time at Norwich remains.
The list of those who have passed through and prospered is endless but if we wind the clock back a few decades, one that springs to mind is, appropriately, Mike Phelan. Bought by Ken Brown from Burnley, upon City’s post-Milk Cup relegation, the new first-team coach spent two successful seasons at Carrow Road before catching the eye of Sir Alex.
The player that returned to the north-west was an infinitely better than the one that arrived. Bought for £60,000, sold for £750,000. Stepping stone successfully negotiated and City, in that instance, with cash in the bank.
Steve Bruce followed a similar path – albeit his journey to Norwich was via Gillingham – and in a three and a half year stay saw his reputation enhance and his value grow (from £125,000 to £800,000). Again, everyone was a winner.
The examples are numerous but probably the most notable, and profitable, was the arrival and subsequent departure of Dean Ashton. Signed by Nigel Worthington from Crewe in January 2005 for a club record £3 million, his departure to West Ham just twelve months later netted the Canaries a whopping £7 million.
And, while it was accompanied by a huge furore over his playing unavailability due to an alleged hamstring injury, the upshot was a player departing with his career on an upward curve and a boost to the City coffers to match. That Ashton’s career was cut short by injury sustained while on England duty was a crushing blow for all concerned.
But his move to Green Street was prompted by his time in the yellow shirt seeing him improve as a player. The same with Bruce and Phelan. They exceeded our expectations and benefitted from their time here. Departed better players.
The point I’m making is not monetary, it’s the fact that something happened on the fields of Trowse and Colney to make them better footballers.
Naturally, along the way there have been a commensurate number of duds – for every Dean Ashton there has been a Dean Coney and for every Andy Linighan an Andy Hughes – but crucially the production line never stopped rolling.
But now it has. In some cases it has even gone in reverse.
Jonny Howson is one who, for the most part, has survived the flack and still falls in the category of ‘good player’, but is he a better one now than when he arrived from Leeds?
Alex Tettey is another whose season has been decent despite all that’s going on around him, but a better player now than when he first arrived from Rennes?
And what about strikers?
The Ricky van Wolfswinkel story needs no more telling but suffice to say you don’t loan to St Etienne a player whose reputation has soared in his time here. His career in the yellow shirt didn’t just plateau, it headed southwards… big time.
Gary Hooper is another whose Carrow Road career began on an upward trajectory but soon flat-lined. A career that started at Grays Athletic and, via a few lower league stops, peaked at Celtic Park, only for it to nose-dive once in the confines of the city walls.
I’m loathe just now to lump Lewis Grabban is this same category but, after a flying and highly-promising start, last season’s fourth highest goalscorer in the Championship has flattered to deceive. As things stand it’s nigh impossible to see him repeat last season’s return of 22 goals.
At Bournemouth he couldn’t stop scoring. Put him in a Norwich shirt and he now can’t buy a goal.
The RvW and Hooper droughts were explained away as two direct results of Chris Hughton’s penchant for ultra-caution, but it would take some extreme ‘Hughton Out-ism’ to blame him for Grabban’s recent scarcity of goals.
And that, in a waffling and rambling nutshell, is what has been troubling me. The unhealthy habit City have picked up of bringing in decent, promising players and, in the space of a few months, draining the footballing life out of them.
Naturally there’s an element of gamble to each new signing – and as mentioned earlier – some will fall by the wayside, but even the law of averages says that some should go on to flourish while decked in yellow and green.
But few, if any, do right now. It seems the best we can hope for is some lateral movement in their footballing journey. Howson, Redmond, Michael Turner even, have all trodden that particular path but for many the donning of the yellow and green shirt is the signal for a decline in form.
Too many punching below their weight. The result: a team that is lesser than the sum of its constituent parts.
And yet I have no conclusions. Only questions.
Is it a return of the much-maligned Norfolk ‘coziness’ that drains the hunger from these bright young things? Is it the expectation of the 26,000 plus Yellow Army that weighs too heavily on the shoulders and stifles the creative spark?
I don’t have an answer, but it’s that which has contributed to a talented squad – on paper at least – to perform so poorly over the last two and half seasons. Good players have become average ones, average ones have become poor and the poor ones have dropped off the radar.
It’s a sobering thought but yet another to bear in mind as all and sundry attempt to unpick the current malaise. And one that is perhaps worth considering as part of the master-plan moving forward.
I’d hate for City to become known as a club that turns the good into the mediocre but right now, to me, that’s how it feels.