Norwich City head coach Dean Smith has confirmed that he is lucky enough to have an almost fully fit squad to choose from for Saturday's Premier League game at Carrow Road against Wolverhampton Wanderers, his second game in charge of the team since his recent appointment

Kieran Dowell, who had missed the previous game against Southampton through illness, has now returned to training on Thursday and is available for selection for the game.

The only absentees are the two long term casulaties Christoph Zimmermann, who is recovering from an ankle injury and Sam Byram, who is now on the comeback trail and starting to regain his match fitness following a lengthy spell on the sidelines

Byram will again aim to play some of the match for the under-23 team this coming Monday, as he looks to step his recovery and target getting back into the first team squad.

 

Norwich City sporting director Stuart Webber has confirmed he will be staying with the Canaries on a new rolling contract.

Webber signalled last month that he was set to commit to a new deal during the November international break.

However, the Welshman has been rather busy since then, having decided to dismiss Daniel Farke as head coach at the start of this month after one win from 11 matches since promotion to the Premier League.

City were holding their annual general meeting at Carrow Road this evening and Webber's contract situation was confirmed to shareholders.

Confirming to applause, he said: “I will be staying. I’ve been speaking with the directors for quite some time, we didn’t want it to be a big hoo-ha, I didn’t like what happened last time when I signed a contract and it felt about me, I hated that to be honest. 

“I’ve always been very open and honest, sometimes people don’t like that but I think that’s the only way, people pay their money and I think if someone asks you a question, you give them an answer, not a fluffy answer but tell them the truth. 

“My plan was always clear that I wanted to go abroad at the end of this current contract and I’ll be honest Covid has changed that, it’s not the right time to be going away at the moment."

Webber was due to be out of contract next summer, having previously signalled his intention to move on to a new challenge when he signed a three-year deal in September 2019 after masterminding the first promotion of his reign.

The 37-year-old former Liverpool academy recruitment chief was alongside the Canaries' board of directors to discuss club matters, having recently decided to appoint Dean Smith as the new head coach.

He continued: "We’ve agreed to do it where we’ll talk about it privately, yearly, it’s not going to be I’m staying for three years, for 10 years, one year, or whatever. 

“The trust I have with (majority shareholders) Delia and Michael is that if the day comes when they want me to leave the next second, then not a problem, and likewise if the time comes when I want to have some time out. 

“I’ve got ambitions away from football, I‘ve got a load of ambitions and Delia and Michael have always known this. I’ve had opportunities to leave for bigger clubs, bigger projects, but it’s not about that. 

“If and when I leave here, it won’t be in football, so for me it was about that understanding with them that as long as I'm allowed to explore certain opportunities, and they've been top class as you'd expect.

"So I'm delighted to be staying, thank you for the round of applause. It's exciting, I'm looking forward to what's next and it's a good opportunity now."

Norwich City recruitment chief Stuart Webber is expected to leave the club at the end of the season after a fall-out with owner Delia Smith, Football Insider is claiming in an article published today.  This is despite a promise he was set to extend his contract just a matter of weeks ago in the midst of the Daniel Farke sacking time.

Sporting director Webber was sat alongside Dean Smith for his recent unveiling as the club’s new manager, however a Norwich source has told Football Insider that all is not well behind the scenes between the 37-year-old transfer guru and club chiefs Smith and her husband Michael Wynn Jones.

The majority shareholders have reportedly clashed over an increasing number of key decisions for the club, including manager appointments and transfers.

It is believed Smith and Wynn Jones wanted former boss Daniel Farke to be sacked earlier than he was, with one suggestion that he could have even gone in the summer after overseeing a second Championship promotion in third seasons.

There has also been disquiet in the boardroom at the poor return on a summer signing spree that cost the club £60million.

Most of the new arrivals this year are considered to have flopped and fingers are being pointed at Sporting Director Webber.

Noticeably, he has often been visibly avoiding the boardroom on match days at Norwich and his relationship with Smith and Wynn Jones is said by the club source to be “not good at all”.

Webber has a strong reputation in the game after overseeing three Championship promotions, two at Norwich and one at his former club Huddersfield Town.

But his critics point out that his excellent record in the second tier masks poor recruitment in the Premier League and the club’s failure to compete in the top flight is partly attributed to signing the wrong type of player, not just at Norwich but also previously at Huddersfield too

His contract is due to expire at the end of the season and, barring an unlikely turnaround, he is now not expected to extend it.

Webber’s former ally Kieran Scott quit the Canaries during the summer to join Middlesbrough as their new sporting director.

It hasn’t taken long for the inevitable transfer rumours linking Norwich City with fringe players at Aston Villa to arrive.  Football Insider have now linked  young striker Keinan Davis with a move to Norwich City in the January transfer window. 

Davis, 23, is a Villa youth product who has only scored six goals in 86 matches for the West Midlands club – although only 28 of those have been starts and only four in the top flight. 

The big forward is under contract until 2024 but has only recently returned from a knee problem that disrupted his start to the season, claiming a goal and an assist as the Villa U21s beat MK Dons 4-2 in the EFL Trophy. 

He also played the final 11 minutes of Smith’s final match in charge, a 1-0 Premier League defeat at Southampton, but was left on the bench by new boss Steven Gerrard during a 2-0 home win over Brighton on Saturday. 

Born and raised in Stevenage, Davis made his Villa debut at 18 but hasn’t had any loan experience and has rarely enjoyed a run of consistent game-time. Football Insider claim a fee of between £2m and £4m could seal a deal. 

Journalist Stuart Hodge would be happy if Norwich City make a move to sign Aston Villa midfielder Conor Hourihane in January.

Norwich have already been linked with the Villa man, who's currently on a season-long loan with Sheffield United in the Championship.

And reports believe that Smith could reunite with the 30-cap Republic of Ireland international at Carrow Road and make him one of his first signings as Canaries boss this winter.

Hourihane played arguably some of the best football of his career during Smith's first two years at Villa Park, so it's not difficult to see where the link is coming from.

During Villa's promotion season in 2018-2019, the former Barnsley man scored seven goals and chipped in with 12 assists before marking his first season as a Premier League player by directly contributing to eight goals in 27 appearances.

The loan signing of Ross Barkley would see Hourihane lose his place in the Villa side, and he spent the second half of last season on loan with Swansea before joining the Blades for this term following Villa's summer spending spree.

But a swift return to the Premier League could be on the cards for Hourihane, who's able to be recalled by Villa and then loaned out elsewhere, with his contract running out next summer.

With the 30-year-old proven at both Championship and Premier League level, Hodge would welcome his arrival.

What did Hodge say?

He told GIVEMESPORT: "I would be happy, because Hourihane always has a good game against Norwich, he always has a good game against us. He often puts in his best performances, so I would quite like us to get him."

 

Dean Smith has only had one game as Norwich City head coach, an eventful game at home against Southamption that the Canaries ended up winning 2-1.  However, the transfer rumours have started already with the new man reported in a number of online media outlets to be plotting a raid on his previous club Aston Villa.

It has been reported on Sunday that newly appointed Norwich head coach Dean Smith is plotting a reunion with midfielder Conor Hourihane when the window reopens at the start of January.

Hourihane moved to Aston Villa at a time when Steve Bruce was still the manager of the Midlands team, but he then went on to feature a further 74 times under Smith, scoring on 15 occasions, and adding a vital further 14 assists.

The 30-year-old also played a important role in Villa's play-off campaign as Dean Smith went on to lead them to promotion back to the top division and the Premier League in 2019.

Hourihane is currently away from Villa on loan at Championship side Sheffield United but he has not been a regular starter at Bramall Lane.

 

New Norwich City Head Coach Dean Smith is reported to be interested in signing a new striker in the upcoming transfer window to bolster the attacking options at his disposal at his new club Norwich City.

The former Aston Villa boss will take charge of the club for the first time this weekend when the Canaries play Southampton, which will allow him to have a lfirst ook at his players inmatch day competitive action.

However, Football Insider have reported that Smith is looking at his options to sign in the impending transfer window and a Premier League quality striker is understood to be at the top of that wish list.

No team has scored fewer goals than Norwich so far this season, with the team having only found the back of the net five times so far in the opening 11 games.

Teemu Pukki is the leading scorer for the team at the moment with a total of just three goals, while American striker Josh Sargent has so far failed to open his account having signed for the club in summer.

New Norwich boss Dean Smith has revealed what is top of his list of things to work on and believes there is enough quality in the Canaries’ squad to stay in the Premier League.

Norwich are bottom of the table and five points from safety, despite securing their first victory of the season at Brentford on November 6. That win was quickly followed by the announcement that Daniel Farke was leaving the club.

“The top of the in-tray is not to concede goals. We’ve conceded too many already and defensively we want to make our structure and organisation a lot stronger. We’ve got talented players and we need to go and score more goals obviously,” Smith said.

“We haven’t scored as many as we would have liked to. But there’s definitely players there who can do both sides of the job.

“I think there’s enough quality, that’s the biggest thing.

“When I spoke to Stuart (Webber, Norwich’s sporting director), he believes in the squad of players, I’ve looked at the squad of players with Craig (Shakespeare, assistant head coach) and we both believe that it’s a squad that probably aren’t producing the results they need and our job is to improve their performance levels.

“If we do that then we’ll get the results.”

Smith has survival experience

Smith successfully fought a relegation battle with Villa during the 2019-20 season and will be assisted by Craig Shakespeare, who worked with him in his previous job.

His first game at the helm will be a home clash with Southampton on Saturday.

Saints were Smith’s last opponents while he was in charge of Villa. A 1-0 defeat followed by his exit two days later.

Smith was then approached by Norwich the following day and was officially announced on Monday.

“I think certainly coming into the training ground here at Colney and meeting up with the staff, I already have an idea of how Southampton play because we came up against them so recently in the last game I managed for Villa,” he added.

“So it should help me in terms of not having to catch up so much compared to if it was a club that I’ve not played against. But they beat Aston Villa 1-0 so we have to turn the result around with the performance.”