Newcastle United Reserve team chief Richard Money all but invited City boss Glenn Roeder to pick up the phone and take his young centre-half David Edgar on loan as the Canaries continued to plan for a season without Dejan Stefanovic.
The 34-year-old Serb's ruptured cruciates – coupled to Jonathan Grounds' early recall to Middlesbrough, Troy Archibald-Henville's 'mistake' of a move from Spurs and John Kennedy's impending return to Scotland – has left the cupboard distinctly bare centre-half wise.
And with yesterday's 3-2 home defeat by Swansea City piling the pressure on Roeder to get his squad up and running again before the Norfolk side are well and truly sucked into the bottom three, so the News Of The World today claimed that the Norwich chief was heading back to St James' with the Canadian Under-20 skipper firmly in his sights.
And with Newcastle having a pretty much full-fit squad at their disposal, so Money could be found drumming up business in the Evening Chronicle last week with both Edgar and another reported City target – England Under-19 striker Andy Carroll – up for grabs.
?You can only loan players if football clubs call and ask you,” said Money, clearly open to invitations.
?We can't phone people and let them know they are available. That's not how it works,” he explained, with the Chronicle quoting Edgar's long-standing friendship with Matty Pattison as another reason why a loan switch to Norfolk would make sense.
Likewise, there is little doubt that both Roeder and his No2 Lee Clark will have eyes and ears everywhere on Tyneside; they will be all too well aware of who is doing what and performing well in the Magpies reserve team set-up.
And with Gary Doherty currently the only experienced, out-and-out centre-half that's scheduled to be both fit and at the club after January 2, so Roeder will be painfully aware of the gaping hole in his armoury in that position.
It would also ensure that last week's reports of his interest in Ipswich Town's out-of-contract centre-half Alex Bruce made sense – even if the Canary chief was at pains to play down the link to Steve's 24-year-old boy.
The Edgar link is likely to linger for as long as it takes for the 21-year-old, six-foot two-inch defender to find a part-time employer.
?If people phone us about one or two people, then maybe with having a few first-team players back to fitness, loans might be a possibility for one or two of them,” added Money. “But they can only win loan deals though their performances in the reserves.?
That Roeder might need to pull smeone or something out of the bag over the next couple of weeks is hardly in doubt after those five minutes of madness either side of the interval yesterday cost the Canaries so, so dear.
Again.
“We've created chances, we've missed them and we get punished with some diabolical defending,” admitted Roeder afterwards, as those two goals in the space of little more than 90, second-half seconds all but ended this weekend's contest. Even if the own goal gave everyone the odd, late straw to cling to.
“The goal in the first few seconds of the second-half, the man in the hole – the man that was told to play in that position every time they have a corner kick – does not do his job correctly,” said Roeder, not naming names as Darren Pratley prepared to flick that 46th minute, near-post corner in off the luckless David Bell.
“Never, ever allow anyone to get in front of you. But not only did he get in front of the player in te hole, he got in front of his marker as well. And, of course, he just bends and gets a flick on it.
“And to compound matters, having watched it a few times on the DVD there already, it's straight in Marshy's [Marshall's] hands and David Bell deflects the ball past Marshy. And we're off to the most poor start you can imagine to the second-half.”
The fact that Norwich could, indeed should, have had the game dead and buried by the break merely deepened Roeder's frustrations.
“So instead of coming in 1-0 up at half-time – and it could have been 2-0, 3-0 up at half-time – it was 1-1. And within a minute we're 2-1 down. Absolutely ridiculous.”
Not that it stopped there as the Canaries staged a real 'Saturday Special'.
“But it was only going to get worse in the next minute or so. We give the ball away cheaply in the centre of midfield and I don't think we get another touch until Marshy picks the ball out of the back of the net.
“At the moment, we might as well just put a gun to our heads. Because you can't concede three goals and expect to score four. That's Fantasy island stuff; that's once in a blue moon.”
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