Six signings, five weeks until the transfer deadline day - and the ITKs are playing the field. CHRIS LAKEY reports


Social media is a place of extreme high and lows, and its relationship with football exemplifies this in a way perhaps only politics can compete with.

The Pink Un: Norwich City summer signing Milot RashicaNorwich City summer signing Milot Rashica (Image: Archant)

Take, for example, the recent spate of signings by Norwich City: in the space of three weeks City brought in Angus Gunn, Milot Rashica, Billy Gilmour and Pierre Lees-Melou. That’s on top of Ben Gibson and Dimitris Giannoulis, whose full-time returns after successful loans were confirmed following promotion. That’s six new players in - only Watford, with nine, have done more incoming business.

If you dipped your toe into the Norwich City social media water the temperature was quite hot, what seems like a majority of supporters happy with the transfers to date.

Melou was the most recent signing – confirmed on July 13... as long as we are not counting the announcement that head coach Daniel Farke had extended his contract. The water was positively bubbling after that one.

But almost a week has passed, and the water has become a little tepid. In fact, it’s frozen in some parts.

What social media can do quite easily is drop a bomb which sends ripples throughout the pond. ITKs – some of whom are more in the know than others but still probably not as much in the know as they lead us to believe – can easily stir up some sludge.

There’s no telling how much insider information a ‘whistleblower’ on social media has without them revealing their identity. Once they do that, their cover’s blown and they are either exposed as a fake or any level of credibility is over, the door to the innermost secrets shut.

So we either take them at their word or we dismiss them as frivolous. If at any time they are revealed to be spot on, they acquire lots of new followers and take on egos the size of France.

The recent week or so of inactivity saw a bomb drop which suggested all was not well within these walls at Colney, that transfer targets were falling through. The alarm bells began to ring in a Pavlovian way as the stampede began to display their concerns on to the screens of anyone who cared to read.

As they took in this unattributed information through one ear, out went the attributed information through the other.

City’s sporting director Stuart Webber – working against a backdrop of a £35m Covid hole - provided the latter.

“It is about who is available and who is willing to come,” he said. “If you look throughout Europe the market is very slow. We are probably a club who have done the most business, or one of, and we still feel we have quite a bit more to do. I think there is a paranoia around the transfer market at the moment with Covid. For sure, the money has been hit and people are concerned about selling at the wrong price and that player being worth a lot more in six weeks' time. You can feel that paranoia from clubs.

“One of our strengths is we will look everywhere and anywhere to sign players and that does gives us an advantage at times. If we were set up in one market, that can become too saturated. We have to be realistic.”

In one fell swoop, the man who oversees all the ins and outs, pretty much explained the position.

Six senior additions to Daniel Farke’s squad and as many as five more before the end of the window – a final day he expects to be very busy.

So a week or two without a signing isn’t something to get your knickers in a twist about: the window closes on August 31. That’s five weeks to get business sorted.

If by then City don’t have a squad that’s fit for Premier League purpose, then it might be time to air your views to the world.

Everyone has the right to express their views and opinions, that’s not in question. Nor is the right of someone with valid information to make that known, particularly if it serves some good.

And it’s your choice what you read and what you believe... but (and this isn’t a puff for what we do here) if you get too hot under the collar about all things Norwich City, just be selective as to where you read it...