"Nothing less than £20 million" - Norwich City's Josh Sargent dilemma as Wolves interest emerges | OneFootball

This article is part of Football League World’s ‘The Verdict‘ series, which provides personal opinions from the FLW writers regarding the latest breaking news, teams, players, managers, potential signings and more…

Wolves have joined the race to sign Josh Sargent from Norwich City this summer.

According to Give Me Sport, the Premier League side are already planning for next season and have identified the United States international as a potential target.

However, they face competition from Brentford in the race to sign him, with the Bees almost certainly needing another attacker this summer to replace Ivan Toney, although they have already landed Club Brugge forward Igor Thiago.

Josh Sargent's Norwich City form in 2023-24 season

It has been an impressive season from Sargent in the Championship when he's been fit, and when it comes to minutes per goal he is among the top in the second tier.

The 24-year-old has bagged 13 goals from 18 Championship appearances, with an ankle injury suffered in August hampering his availability for a large portion of the campaign - he only returned from that at the end of December and he's been on a man on a mission ever since.

Sargent is the Canaries' leading goal scorer as they look to land a play-off spot come the end of the 2023-24 season, but Premier League interest that is already mounting for the American could potentially turn his head.

Should Norwich City cash in on Josh Sargent this summer amid Wolves interest?

Here we ask our FLW writers their verdict on whether the Norfolk outfit should cash in on Sargent this summer amid Premier League interest...

Declan Harte

Sargent’s future could be determined by Norwich’s success in the hunt for Premier League promotion.

If David Wagner can guide the club to the top flight then that will seriously bolster their chances of keeping their star forward, making a sale very unlikely.

But it is Sargent’s injury issues that could ultimately prove costly in their top six crusade, as the team really struggled for consistent form without him in the first half of the season.

It is that stretch without him that will make Norwich keen to keep hold of the player over the summer even if they remain in the Championship, but the allure of Premier League football could be too enticing for Sargent to turn down.

The Canaries do hold a strong hand in any negotiations as the forward is contracted to Carrow Road until 2028.

So that means it could take up to £20-25 million to convince the club to sell this summer if they remain in the Championship.

Norwich should absolutely avoid cashing in for anything less given his importance to the side, and given his goals per game record this season, he's clearly ready for the step back up to the top flight.

Ben Wignall

In a season where it has been more attacking midfielders and wingers that have come to the fore in terms of goalscoring, Sargent has picked up the obvious headlines for his form - the only striker that has netted more in the league is Adam Armstrong and he has appeared in 18 more matches.

It's important to note though that this current version of Sargent is a lot different to the one that was appearing for Norwich in the Premier League two seasons ago.

With Teemu Pukki still the Canaries' leading marksman, Sargent struggled for game-time as a centre-forward and he was often shunted out to the right flank - a position that didn't best suit the American.

It was a similar situation in the Championship last season too, but a 13-goal haul showed signs that there was a top attacker in there, and he's proved that more-so during the current campaign.

There is little surprise that Sargent is now attracting interest from the likes of Brentford and Wolves, but the latter's keenness may be more attractive as they lack real out-and-out options up top.

With a pre-tax loss of £27.3 million for last season though, with that also including parachute payments, there may be an unfortunate need for Norwich to cash in on an asset if they do not win promotion back to the top flight - although they did bank money for Max Aarons, Andrew Omobamidele and Milot Rashica in the months following the end of the financial year.

The play-offs are going to be as competitive as ever this year if Norwich stay inside the top six, and if they don't go up, then I can see Sargent being one of the players that they just have to consider offers for.

Norwich though should look at what other Championship attackers have gone for in recent years, and they should be accepting nothing less than £20 million for the attacking maestro.