The 2023-24 English Football League Championship season is still over one month away from kicking off but the excitement surrounding Norwich City has begun following the start of preseason camp.
Summer signing Ashley Barnes has made the move to Norwich City after spending the last nine years with Burnley in the top two divisions in English Football. Barnes, 33, not only replaces Teemu Pukki, who made the move to Major League Soccer on Tuesday, but also joins U.S. men’s national team forward Josh Sargent in the Canaries attacking fold.
Sargent enjoyed a positive 2022-23 campaign for Norwich City, leading the team with 13 league goals and taking a key step forward after an up-and-down campaign in the English Premier League. Barnes is still in the early stages of connecting with his new teammates, but already has early praise for Sargent and the potential they have together this coming season.
“I want to give them [Sargent and Adam Idah] as much help as possible and I think them playing with me, as a person, I’m there to help them,” said Barnes to Pink UN on Tuesday. “To speak about Josh, I mean what a great talent. I’ve been training with him for one day and I think he’s exceptional.
“I’m so excited to link up with him and that is just our movement already from doing a little bit of possession work. I’m so excited to see what this season can hold,” Barnes added.
Norwich City missed out on the promotion playoffs last season, finishing in 13th place and seven points behind sixth-place Sunderland. David Wagner returns as manager after replacing Dean Smith midway through the season, and already has a connection with Sargent from working with him over the past few months.
The Canaries open their league campaign on August 5 against Hull City, with Barnes and Sargent both pressing to be in Wagner’s first starting lineup of the new season.
The last time Sargent was playing for the USMNT, I thought his improvement was clear and obvious. I’m kind of disappointed that he seems to have been forgotten for national team call-ups.
He’s got time.
I’ll call them our attacking players, and they now include, in no particular order, Flo, Pepi, Wright, Josh, Gio, Pulisic,Weah, Zendejas, Sonora, The Tillman Boys, Pefok, Dike, LDLT,Jordan, Ferreira, KDLF, Vasquez, Brenden, Cowell and Boyd. I’m sure I forgot somebody.
Lots of bodies to cycle through.
Josh just needs to build on last year. If he can maintain or even improve on that he’ll get his chances. He’ll want to aim for making the Copa America squad.
Right now I’d have Sargent third on the striker pecking order, just behind Balogun and Pepi. He’s not as physically talented as Balogun or Haji Wright but he’s still a very good athlete, and in terms of movement, vision, technical ability, etc…he’s as good as we have in our pool.
He very much reminds me of a very, very, very poor man’s Karim Benzema. The difference is Benzema is just in a league of his own in terms of vision and understanding and has icewater instead of blood in his veins and if you give him even a half-look at the goal he buries it. Sargent, on the other hand, can be more than a little…streaky and inconsistent as a finisher, I guess, would be the polite way to put it.
I will say, though, that Sargent has come a long ways since the erratic error-prone guy he was even a couple years back who seemingly got the yips every time he got the ball in scoring position – and who was fully capable of scuffing a shot from even three feet in front of goal. The knock on Sargent was that he was a really talented striker…who just didn’t actually score. Sargent’s ticket back to the Prem is mostly just improved consistency.
Between Sargent and Haji Wright and Brandon Vasquez, couple years from now we could well have 5-6 strikers (assuming Pefok stays in the Bundesliga) who play in Top-5 leagues.
I think those are called “Uptown Problems.”
Haji Wright does not belong in this conversation whatsoever.
Owen-
Why’s that? There’s been some lower-tier Prem teams that have openly been linked to him. I personally think bottom-of-the-Prem/Championship is about where his level is at the moment…and I think he’d struggle in the Prem (like Sargent did) and do quite well in the Championship. He’s a better player than Daryl Dike, for instance. Give him some time he might develop into something more than that; the big strikers always seem to peak later than the pure speed guys do…and play longer, because they don’t fizz out at 30. Especially when the big knock on him is unsophisticated movement. Of our top guys his is easily the worst.
Unlike, say, touch, which seems baked-in after 19 or 20 or so, you can learn movement and positioning and a player’s understanding improves over time. And the dude does seem pretty bright.
Quozzel,
Josh has not often played on striker friendly teams. He’s been played as a forechecker and backchecker, in hockey terms. That tends to limit your scoring opportunities
And even on those teams he was often the second option.
It was only once Norwich seemed to finally decide that he was going to replace Pukki, that he started to find the scoring touch he displayed when he was much younger.
Assuming all goes well, he should be a factor for some time.
Josh keep picking up little niggling injuries whenever there seems to be a NT camp coming up, the period before the WC and immediately after was the only time he was relatively healthy. If he fixes that, he’ll be a mainstay at camps with the A team for sure!