The Norwich City signing that left within six months and let the Canaries down: View | OneFootball

The 2007 summer transfer market was undoubtedly a busy one for those connected with Norwich City.

During that particular window, no fewer than ten senior players would leave Carrow Road. Indeed, that would generate some controversy, with Darren Huckerby criticising the club for allowing some of their best performers to leave.

That in turn, will have put pressure on the new signings coming into the club, to fill the void left by those to have departed.

One player who many will surely feel was unable to step up and handle that responsibility for Norwich City was David Strikhava.

Norwich needed a striker to bring goals at Carrow Road

Among those to leave the Canaries during the summer of 2007, was Robert Earnshaw, with the striker signing for Derby County.

The departure of the Welsh international meant that Norwich lost their top scorer from the previous season.

Earnshaw had scored 19 goals in just 30 league games for Norwich during the 2006/07 campaign, in which they finished 16th in the Championship.

As a result, there was a need for the club to find another source of goals to prevent the club sliding further down the table.

One individual who was brought in to try and help solve that issue was Strihavka. The striker joined the Canaries from Banik Ostrava in his native Czech Republic.

He signed a four-year deal at Carrow Road, with Norwich paying an undisclosed fee for his services.

Strihavka arrived at Norwich, having scored 15 goals in 39 league appearances for Ostrava over the previous two seasons.

However, the Czech would never get close to producing that sort of form during his time in East Anglia.

Strihavka failed to fire for Norwich

Having completed his move to Carrow Road, the striker's stay in England would prove to be a brief one.

By January 2008, just a few months after he had joined Norwich, Strihavka had seen his contract with the Canaries terminated by mutual consent.

As a result, the club were unable to get much return on their investment in the striker, either on or off the pitch.

In action, Strihavka amassed just ten league games for Norwich, during which time he found the net only once, with the winner in a 1-0 victory over Crystal Palace in early September 2007.

Having failed to build on that though, the striker was unable to make any further significant contributions for the club.

Indeed, at that point, Norwich were 20th in the Championship table, just one point clear of the relegation zone.

Consequently, Strihavka had evidently not been able to make the impact the Canaries needed him to in front of goal, as they might have hoped when they signed him, given his previous record.

The fact that Strihavka failed to establish himself in the side and get the goals Norwich needed to move further up the table, is unlikely to have helped manager Peter Grant, who had been sacked by October 2007.

Meanwhile, with the striker being released rather than sold, Norwich also missed out on the chance to recoup any of the money that they had put into signing him just a few months earlier.

Indeed, the fact that Strihavka was moved on so quickly by the club, despite having plenty of time remaining on his contract, does seem to highlight how badly things were going for those involved in the deal.

Norwich City will be desperate to avoid a repeat of in the years to come.