5. At 31, It's Time To Look For A Replacement Anyway
I have personally felt for some time now that Norwich need to look for a younger replacement for Hoolahan. The player is now 31, and will turn 32 by the end of this season, so perhaps the time has come to source a replacement. Its obvious to say that he has certain qualities that other players in squad do not possess. Thats probably the strongest reason to hold onto him, especially since replacing those qualities is likely to cost a lot of money. However, its something that the club will have to do at some point anyway, so Id like to think they could be a bit proactive and possibly get ahead of the game. When transfer speculation of this type is floating around, the obvious thing to do is to get the player locked down with a new contract. In fact, its fair to say that players often use transfer requests as a way to negotiate the kind of contract that they would ideally like. On the other hand, its not really in the clubs best interest to offer a long-term deal, so perhaps they should focus instead on finding his replacement.