The transfer scene can be a complex business but who are Norwich kidding with a £5m bid for Gary Hooper?
Relations between Celtic and the Canaries should be strong following two friendlies in the last twelve months and respect between two clubs that run their business sensibly despite the financial madness all around.
Regardless of the contempt that some in England have for all things Scottish a £5m bid for a striker that scored home and away against Spartak Moscow in the Champions League is beyond contempt.
Most rational managers would rather have Hooper in their side than so-called marquee signings like Andy Carroll and Daniel Sturridge let alone £8m Jordan Rhodes.
Hooper has out performed all three strikers throughout his career and can look back on four solid seasons of scoring 20 plus in the Championship and SPL.
In August Blackburn paid Huddersfield £8m for a striker whose pedigree hadn’t extended beyond League One!
In 110 League One appearances for Huddersfield Rhodes scored 73 goals, in the Championship Hooper scored 43 times in 78 Scunthorpe appearances.
Dismissing the insulting bid Neil Lennon said: “Norwich made a bid and we have rejected it. I’m very annoyed it’s come out down there because we like to do our business privately.
“I don’t like the thought of Norwich trying to unsettle a player. I’m not going to point any fingers — but it has certainly not come out from up here.
“We looked at the bid, we rejected it and it is as you were. I spoke to Gary’s representatives and we have made our position clear.
“We’ve made an offer to them on a new contract and we are waiting to hear back from them. Norwich’s valuation is nowhere near ours.”
There is little chance of Hooper playing for Celtic in Europe next season but the search for the next Hooper is already underway.
In less than three seasons Celtic have defined themselves as a selling club that uncovers and nurtures emerging talent. The next step in this development is to sell players for considerable profit to reinvest in the team.
The £10m sale of Aiden McGeady helped fund the recruitment of Hooper, it’ll take a similar sum to buy Hooper with Celtic holding all the cards as the poker stakes are increased.
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Good article and as a NCFC fan i have the total respect for your great football club. Bigger than most teams in the premiership and most likely top 6.
Norwich are smaller but can offer Premiership football which i am sure Celtic fans agree is a better league in overall quality.
I would be surprised if Hooper leaves but i wouldn’t be surprised if they come back with an £8m bid which may chance Celtic’s resolve. Time will tell. but one thing i can say is Norwich City DO NOT behave in the way it is reported, we are not trying to unsettle Hooper, this information has been made public not by Norwich but someone else, someone who has an interest in this happening, leave you to decide that persons identity.
Whatever happens i will always support your fantastic club from a far and wish you well in the champs league against Juventus.
Hope we get to meet again soon.
Canarypaul
Sir, you are a gentleman and a true football supporter. I am a huge Celtic fan and also an admirer of Hooper. Do I blame Norwich for trying to buy Hooper ? NO ! why would they not try to purchase a very good player on the cheap.
But I believe Celtic will hold out for nearer 8-9 Million (still money well spent by Norwich) and we will re-invest.
Paul the very best of luck to Norwich City.
Dean
Canarypaul, I think you are missing a clear fact in the “leak”. Someone inside st Norwich had to make it known about a bid. Think about it! Now you just need to read that they say a bigger offer is being considered by Norwich to understand that unsettling the player is the plan, like it or not.
No disrespect though,I always liked Norwich, but this is a low attempt and I suspect Gary Hooper will end up at a bigger club than Norwich.
not necessarily a leak from Norwich… Could be his agent trying to force the move through as the contract between hoops and his agent expires at the end of the month. This is the most likely scenario in my opinion!
I watch a lot of perm matches and the standard of the average perm player is no better than Celtic, albeit that is miles ahead of the rest of the SPL. Forster, Lustig, Ambrose, Mathews, Mulgrew, Izzaguirre, Kayal, Wanyama, Commons, Hooper, and potentially Forrest, McGeouch and Watt from the younger guys, are better than Norwhich standard, where the plodder and hunnite Steven Whittaker is very successful and he could not get ahead of any of the guys I mentioned.
I haven’t mentioned Brown yet as this year at all levels he has proven that he now has top level ability…coinciding with his new found maturity! Norwich, you may be in the Prem but you are second tier perm and second rate. If Hooper joins its not to play at Carrow Road, but Anfield, Old Trafford and the other great grounds. £10m should be the fee for a proven talent, not a risk like many of the average perm players including Carrol and what about Sturridge?? Saw him at Manu last week. Scored 1 from 4 very good chances. The others he missed showed he can rarely hit a cows arse with a banjo! Dream on!
spot on m8, Man U are a shadow of themselves and are romping that league at the mid-way stage. 2nd and 3rd placed Man C and Chelsea are OUT the UCL and Chelsea got gubbed by A. Madrid in the super cup. S. Fletcher is bouncing about from club to club for obscene amounts of cash, not to mention Carrol and Rhodes. Without the foreigners their league would seriously be no different from the SPL and as for the English international players, well their major tournament performances say it all! OVER RATED!!!
HH
No contest!!
Honestly, people don’t know how good Hooper is and what he’ll become. He’s destined for the top, the very top imo.
He’ll probably leave CP in the summer, but I just hope we tie him down on a new contract and get around 10 mill for him. Hate to see him go but good luck to him.
Unless Celtic beat Juve and he’s persuaded to stay for another crack at the UCL then I’d say he’s off.
If he was scoring UCL goals at the tender age of 24 for an English club, you wouldn’t see much change from 15 mill, easy!!
Hooper is worth his weight in gold, touch, vision and finish of the highest quality and its been a pleasure watching him play in the hoops. However no player is bigger than our famous club and lets hope we can find or nurture a capable replacement WHEN he leaves.
HH 1NL YNWA
Totally agree withe sentiments…he’s worth much more than that…..
However…I should remind you…we made a “derisory” offer to Hamilton Accies for James McCarthy…he got away…and Fletcher as well….
Still annoys me….
To be fair when Blackbum signed Rhodes, it was desperation, chucking money at their whole set of problems. A while later the man who was allowed to spend such a lump walked away. I thought £5 wasn’t a bad starting point, for further negoiations. But lennon’s outburst is total crap. Hooper’s agents let it out, to get one more payday from the player, before he signs for a new agent.
As for unsettling players, any transfer bid from any club including his can and does unsettle players, but if he so confident of Hooper not wanting to leave, then he hasn’t a lot to worry about
Canaryboy…what outburst? The point is 5 mill is total taking the pi$$ and Celtic should refrain from doing any business with time wasters. Starting point?? try doubling it for a start. Norwich are unsettling a lot of things by offering a poultry amount of cash and trying to tip the scales by a whopping 30 grand a week deal. He can get 25 grand a week tomorrow at Celtic, and Champions league football every year. If he keeps doing the business in the UCL, Hodgson will have no choice but to call him up as they only really have Rooney and Defoe. This myth about having to play in the EPL to play for England is exactly that…a myth! 98% of the England squad play in the EPL and they can hardly string 10 passes together at major tournaments!! Honestly over-rated is an understatement!!
I think lennons actions are justified not because Norwich made a cheeky bid but because the story was leaked. in fairness, lenny never pointed the finger at NCFC but rather voiced his verbal at whoever it could have been.
See all these teams that spout they play in EPL, they r usually 2nd rate. Would Norwich win the SPL……no! End of story.
An absolute joke, the money that gets thrown about down there and they think a 5 million bid would be taken seriously, celtic need to make an example of norwich now and tell them they will have to pay 5 million on top of celtics value to get him, teach them all a lesson, we arent here to pander to 3rd rate english no hopers, not even the so called big 4, if you want our players youll pay what they are worth not what you think as its the scottish premier
I think if Hooper was to leave then Norwich would get a lot more goals due to their style of play. I think he would also suit man utd’s style of play perfectly. However, I don’t think he would do too well in the likes of Arsenal or Liverpool as they tend to play a bit of a different game.
If we get the right money for him then I’ll be happy. I certainly wouldn’t be distraught like I was when Larsson was linked with man utd for 15m (thats when I used to read newspapers!). I’m sure Lenny would throw down the challenge to our other strikers to make themselves the first name on the team sheet.
HH
I’d treat the bid with the contempt it deserves, completely ignore it. Hooper is under contract for another 18 months so is going nowhere fast. It will be up to other clubs to make bids that might make Celtic think twice until then it is simply more garbage for the chip wrappers.
I really like Hooper, but he isn’t irreplaceable, although it would be wise to have someone lined up before we decide to sell. The summer would be the ideal time to do business. He can go where he likes as long as we get the right amount.
As derisory as the offer was I would say that either thats all that Norwich can afford OR they see it as a good bid because Hooper has only 18 months left on his contract. If Hooper had anything about him he’d sign a new deal thereby increasing his value and in return Celtic would give him a £15M get out clause. I think that is a good return for both parties.
This just smells of desperation from Hooper’s current agent who is getting punted at the end of the month
Agree! HH
If Celtic are to be successful in their plan to by developing talent and sell on then this is a benchmark situation by allowing Hoops to go for a sub £10m offer at this stage with over a year to go on his contract would be a disaster and set a dangerous precedent which would under-value our other assets (Victor foster etc..)Id reject any offers this window…what if stokes got that partnership back together and Gary scored another 20 plus goals by May we could easily ask £12m…!!!
I never mentioned anything about playing for England or wages he can or cannot get. Norwich players get overlooked anyways no matter how good they are playing.
I said thought 5 mill was a good starting place. Of course we all think our own players are worth more than they are. I said to use Rhodes as a comparison wasn’t quite the one, given all the trouble Keen was in a Blackbum throwing money at a player to get fans onside.
I don’t know or really care if you have a chip on your shoulders about clubs under pricing your players, I can assure you Norwich have been on that end too so it is not all happening in Scotland.
To be fair “we” don’t really care what you think!
Celtic since 1888
that is much the same down here. whinging load twats
you obviously came on here with no intention, now run along son, nothing to see here..
and mind your language!
and another thing, if Hooper did sign for you he would have been getting humped 5-0 by Liverpool yesterday lol.
GIRFUY
Have some pity. This time last year a now defunct team offered £1m for Norwich’s top goal scorer!
Norwich is a step down IMO, take away the money that gets pumped into that sky owned league, norwich would be bankrupt like the rest of the eee pee ell, and i for 1 cant wait for the day it all implodes.
I seen a comment above stating IF norwich were in our league would they win it, NOT A CHANCE
Just a pity the hoops will NEVER get to teach them a lesson in a competitive European competition, because the bottom line is they will never qualify for one.
Lastly put us in their league with all the money that goes with it, within 3 years we would be challenging to win it, as on the other hand norwich and the like will be forever trying to survive.
I think a 5-0 defeat today by a fairly mid table average Liverpool team should tell Hoops all he needs to know about signing for Norwich – a team who more than likely will always be constantly fighting relegation. I’ve always quite liked Norwich but Hoops can do better.
I believe he will go in the summer probs for about 7.5/8 mill with add ons bringing it up to 10/11 mill.
I would take 5 mill and Grant Holt though!! But his wages would be too much depends if he wants to win some trophies before he retires!!