With Gary Hooper starting 17 games during Norwich City’s promotion-winning season, it could be taken as no surprise to fans when they saw his name being linked with a move elsewhere in the summer. However, with Norwich CEO David McNally refuting any link to Sheffield Wednesday and Sheffield United’s chairman Jim Phipps admitting “an own goal” after causing confusion by retweeting a fans tweet to “confirm the sentiment” about the player, this leads to more questions as to what the 27-year-old’s future may entail if leaving Norwich is not on the cards.
Having 12 goals and six assists to his name, no one can deny that Hooper played a key part in City’s pursuit to bounce back to the Premier League. He had added more assists to his name than his first season at Norwich City and found the net on more occasions despite his lack of starts or full 90 match appearances. He scored three goals when coming on as a substitute, however, totalled eight goals when he played the full 90 minutes – in fact, the two games where he played the full 90 minutes but failed to score resulted in an assist anyway.
There’s a clear pattern that Hooper’s impact in a game occurs when the player has the time to score – he’s by no means a last minute resort to throw onto the pitch in the dying minutes. He’s not the super sub in terms of goals – 13 minutes left against Brighton was the latest substitute appearance where he scored – any other goals from substitute Hooper saw the striker take to the pitch earlier. To add to this, Hooper never assisted a goal when he came on as a substitute last season.
That makes it no surprise when his records from his final season at Celtic and first season at Norwich are identical with goals and assists from Hooper being the result of the striker playing all or the majority of the game in the Premier League – he never scored or assisted coming off the bench.
It would seem that for Hooper to further his scoring record, he would need to cement his place in the starting XI first, but with Cameron Jerome’s powerful yet pacey physique as the lone striker preferred over Hooper, it becomes debatable as to how he will make an impact this season for City.
Allowance of a lone striker means City can not only focus on defending against the best strikers in the League but where Norwich outshone the rest of teams in the Championship – the midfield. With the likes of Nathan Redmond, Bradley Johnson, Jonny Howson, Alex Tettey, Wes Hoolahan and summer signings, Youssouf Mulumbu and Graham Dorrans, all available to provide the most crucial tackles and passes, lone strikers are more likely to create breaks and come face-to-face with the goalkeeper – as seen in Jerome’s first goal in City’s 2-1 victory against Bolton and not forgetting, his first against Middlesbrough at Wembley.
However, Gary Hooper has always opted and succeeded through the use of a partner alongside him. Even at Celtic, he often played behind Anthony Stokes or occasionally played down the middle with Stokes and Georgios Samaras playing out wide.
For Hooper to score his preferred short tap-ins, he needs the assistance of someone alongside – this is possibly limited when the reliance is on the midfield passing it forward and it is up to the striker to barge defenders off the ball, perhaps hinting at the preference towards Cameron Jerome due to his physical presence on the pitch.
As most strikers do, Hooper knows how to put away a short tap in and as mentioned above, it’s his preference. But he’s also shown he can add a little variety to his game with a couple of exceptions against Rotherham and Brighton last season, which were both on the edge of the box. And then there’s the looping last minute goal against Bolton. That goal alone proves that the 5-foot-9 forward can deal with pressure with the ‘keeper in touching distance and it may not all be about physical appearances.
Jerome’s one-on-one goals won credit throughout the season but Hooper has once again been able to show that he can handle the exact same situation. He’s been City’s penalty taker when he’s on the pitch – surely one-on-one situations can’t get more intimate and pressurised than that – and he proved against Blackpool and Millwall his ability to outpace defenders to be one-on-one with the goalkeeper – there was always the option of passing to Lewis Grabban for his first against The Lions.
This ability to play up front as a lone striker was piloted against Hitchin. Whilst against Gorleston Alex Neil chose to play Hooper alongside Grabban. Hitchin saw Gary Hooper play as the lone striker with Hoolahan, Jacob Murphy and Tony Andreu supporting. Similarly to the play fans had adjusted to last season, goals came from across the field in the second half, with Andreu, Hoolahan, Gary O’Neil, Steven Whittaker and most importantly, Hooper, finding the back of the net. An assist for Andreu and several opportunities for Hooper hinted there’s a possibility that he can potentially play the lone striker in City’s Premier League campaign this season.
City’s friendly against Cambridge United last night, however, provided an alternative team formation for Alex Neil and one likely to suit Hooper this season. Playing off Jerome, Hooper took up a similar role to the one he had played in whilst at Celtic. It benefited the striker when it came to opportunities – only for them to rise above the bar. Whilst playing this formation in the Premier League would most likely mean dropping Hoolahan, but as much as fans hope “age is just a number” in the case of the Irishman, Hooper could be seen as a Plan B, and after his goal-scoring records at Celtic, why deny the chance of seeing him get back to his best by playing him where he prefers?
Although one-on-one goals against teams who saw relegation to League One at the end of the season and playing as the lone striker against a Southern Premier Division team doesn’t indicate whether he can succeed playing that role in the Premier League, it does hint that he has the ability to play in the role and insinuates the mind-set of Alex Neil in regards to Hooper’s future at NR1.
Gary Hooper will have competition if Alex Neil decides to stay with a lone striker up front, with City still on the hunt for another striker to join their ranks. He may not be a super sub – only one can hope he becomes it during this vital season for the club and himself as a player. But he has proven he can score in all four divisions of English football over his career and the fact he scored 12 goals out of 30 shots, with 19 of those on target in the Championship, they have to count for something.
If he is able to prove himself in the lone striker role, his future at Norwich will be clearer. If not, it provides Alex Neil with a Plan B if he would rather play two up front, but also makes Hooper’s future a little less certain if Alex Neil sticks to the same team formations to last season.
