As winter transfer windows go, it’s been eventful in Norwich.
Lewis Grabban out of the door, four new faces in, the Matt Jarvis deal and now Gary Hooper has packed his bags (and expensive trainer collection) to join the revolution taking place up in the blue half of Sheffield.
The fates of our other ‘errant’ strikers Kyle Lafferty and Ricky van Wolfswinkel remain in the balance at time of writing.
But back to Hooper. What’s to be made of his time with the Canaries? Was he a super-Hooper or the Canaries’ Hooper-man?
These are the goal stats for our ex-£5 million man from Celtic.
2013/14
2 – Watford (A) – League Cup
1 – West Ham (H) pen
1 – C. Palace (H)
1 – West Brom (A)
1 – Swansea (H)
1 – Fulham (H)
1 – Liverpool (H)
Total: 8 (6 Prem, 2 League Cup)
2014/15
1 – Brighton (H)
1 – Reading (H)
2 – Millwall (H)
1 – Bournemouth (A)
1 – Cardiff (H)
3 – Blackpool (H) 1 pen
1 – Millwall (A) pen
1 – Bolton (A)
1 – Rotherham (A)
Total: 12 (All Championship)
65 league games – 26 (or 40 per cent) as substitute.
20 goals (3 pens) in 70 games in total. Or, to put it another way, £250,000 per goal.
Value for money? Sadly not.
There were some highlights for sure – that crucial last gasp winner at Bolton and the equaliser in that great win at table-topping Bournemouth on Alex Neil’s first day in the office most notably.
However, Hooper’s time was plagued by injury and with being out of favour with successive bosses when he was fit. Often, when given the chance, he cut a slow and not quite with it character in his first season at the top level.
The level below saw him still playing second and third fiddle to Cameron Jerome and Grabban. And he was an unused substitute at Wembley to boot.
The nettle was there for him to grasp at times but he wasn’t quick enough or, maybe, even determined enough.
Overall, a disappointing stay with us for a man who came with a big reputation in the summer of 2013, and who at the time was keen to force his way into the England squad for Brazil. It’s hard to believe now.
Two and a half years on and that international stage is long gone as Hooper tries to rediscover his fading mojo back in the Championship.
No question, he is a very good poacher from within the five to ten yard range and has the occasional belter from further out in his locker (goals vs Bolton and Swansea for example). His two recent goals for Wednesday against Leeds were ‘classic’ Hooper. Others did the work and he pounced on the scraps from short range.
In a front two with a willing and athletic striking partner, Hooper is an ideal man. In the predominantly lone striking role favoured by us and most others now in the Premier League, he was never going to be top dog.
I wish him well at his new club, who look a good bet for a play-off place as things stand although there are plenty of twists and turns yet to happen as we experienced last season.
And what does Hooper leave behind? Well, a developing squad that Alex Neil is gradually moulding in his own image.
The leftovers of previous managers are slowly disappearing from view, some of whom played crucial parts in our promotion back to the big time, and others who were more peripheral.
There are new faces on the training pitch and – the Liverpool craziness aside – renewed optimism in the minds of the faithful.
And after the fallout from Saturday, it’s time to move on, look forward and to knuckle down and give it our all, the last of which Gary Hooper never quite managed to achieve in the yellow and green.
Hoopers best days came as a second striker off a big CF much like Naismith will now get the chance to do. His link up play is incredible, but we attempted to shoe horn him in to a lone striker role and deem him ‘only a poacher’. If you buy players of this level, you have to replicate what they are already doing. You buy a Hooper, you buy a samaras. He is not Alexis Sanchez and can’t leave people in his wake with page or magic. Admittedly, I was disappointed with his tenure but it was to be expected the way we played him. You only have to watch his link up flicks to understand only a poacher he is not. If Weds play him as he should be played, fans are going to be questioning yet another sale as we couldn’t get the best out of someone. At weds, he is already half way to his tally with us last year. To have a goal scorer who scores a brace against juve, scores for every other club he plays for and not ask why internally is nothing less than myopic.
Injuries clearly didn’t help his cause, but I also got the impression, when he returned from injury, that it always seemed to take him half a dozen games or so to get up to full fitness.
As another question, if we have genuine Premier League survival ambitions, can we really afford to have a striker who can only really play in a front two?
Fitness not helped by a penchant for KFCs (allegedly).
Admirable summary, Russ.
A player with talent, but perhaps a classic conundrum: to get up to speed he needed a long run of games, exactly what you can’t give him in the Premier League. Happily for all parties, the Championship (specifically Sheff Wed) has given him that run and he’s now converting the fans who initially wrote him off.
No reason for us to do anything other than wish him well.
How many of our current strikers have a games per goal ratio of approx 3, considering that a high proportion of those games were not full appearances?
Also to get a true cost per goal, surely you have to take the net cost and consider the transfer fee received as well?
I think your stats hide the fact he was joint top goal scorer despite starting only around half the games under a manager who didn’t know how to attack.
People liked Hooper because in a dross season when he was on the pitch you thought we might, just might, bang a few in. Perhaps if he’d started a few more games we’d have stayed up. It would only have required a couple more goals.
Toad – thank Christ we didn’t buy Samaras! Modern strikers need to be more versatile and able to create their own openings when the service is limited. Hooper never showed that ability.
Gary – Even when fit and given the start, often he looked sluggish and dare I say disinterested?
Mike – Ah, the curse of the fast food crave has cut short many an amateur career – no excuse for a highly paid professional.
Stewart – I suspect (injury permitting) he’ll do well with Wednesday but there are 4-5 better sides in the Champ. Don’t think we’ll see him back at NR1 for a while (unless..no don’t even think it).
Dave B (6) – The eternal ifs and buts!
Perhaps if we’d had a harder-working striker than Hooper that season we’d have stayed up. In the critical period late Jan- early March 2014 he didn’t step up to the plate. We only won one game in that period – home to Spurs, the one game he didn’t play in.
Like the sacking of Hughton with 5 games to go and City outside the relegation places – we’ll simply never know where a different path would have taken us.
Max – whichever way you care to slice it, his value depreciated and no PL club was interested. Hooper ratio of 3.5 games per goal – Jerome 2.7 (many in big games against the better sides).
Dave – hindsight is a wonderful/pointless thing.
“People liked Hooper..” Some did – many didn’t because of his slothful demeanour at important times.
@Stewart
There were plenty of people who didn’t step up to the plate that season. The board bunted with two christmas loans. The defense struck out consistently. Our other strikers swung and missed.
Yet Hooper got 6 home runs. Let’s not forget Holt got 8 (I think) the season before as the main striker and no one ever questioned his work.
It seems odd to pick a striker we’ve just sold and pitch a fit about his ROI. We need to be treating our players better if we want people to join our roster. One idea would be actually playing the people we buy or passing them on in a timely fashion. Cough, Becchio, Lafferty, Hooper, RVW, Grabban, plus a bunch of players we picked up this season and show no signs of breaking in.
Thanks for your work Hooper, don’t let the bat hit you on the way out.
Hooper is a goal scorer, plain & simple. His record speaks for itself. He was never really given an extended run as a starter and due to the way we play, has had to live off scraps. I saw his ‘screamer’ of a goal at Rotherham last season and feel we have lost the services of an old fashioned ‘finisher’ of true quality. Get your money on Sheffield Wednesday for promotion now.
Since our relegation season of 2013-14 was raised, I just uncovered a potentially interesting stat.
After 28 January 2014 we only won two more games. A common factor of those two games? Hooper was left out.