Norwich City netted £6m profit from club-record Burnley deal.
Robbie Brady’s transfer deadline day move from Norwich City to Burnley in January 2017 split opinion amongst Canaries fans at the time, but they must now look back on it fondly.
Not only did it net them an impressive £6m profit after selling Brady for a reported £13m – which was a club-record for the Clarets at the time, but Norwich watched on as Brady’s career went on a steady decline thereafter.
Signed from Hull City for a reported £7m back in July 2015, Norwich had more than their money’s worth out of Brady, who played 62 times for the club across his modest stay, with 36 of those appearances coming in the Premier League.
He was ultimately powerless to avoid Norwich facing the drop in 2016, and as one of the bigger names in the Championship at the time, it was little surprise to see he had top-flight suitors.
Brady has actually played 160 times in the Premier League during his career, so the Manchester United academy graduate’s pedigree is undoubted, but his career stalled a little after leaving Norwich, struggling for game time wherever he went.
Norwich failed to reinvest the money wisely
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Norwich swooped on the same deadline day to sign Yanic Wildschut from Wigan Athletic, investing £7m into the former Middlesbrough man, who had impressed at Wigan in League One the season prior and kept up the good work in the Championship.
Wildschut had racked up 21 goal involvements in 34 League One games in 2015/16 as Wigan walked to promotion, and it was his direct wing play that sounded him out as a like-for-like replacement for Brady.
The Suriname international also brought with him that element of flexibility similar to Brady, as in his time as Wigan he’d played a variety of positions, including wing back, wide midfield and striker.
His move to East Anglia proved to be an abject failure though as he collected as many yellow cards (two) as he did goal involvements across his 26 Norwich appearances, which is a damning indictment of the struggles the Canaries faced in replacing Brady.
In fact, the profit Norwich made on Brady was essentially wiped out by this failed Wildschut investment, as in July 2019 he moved to Maccabi Haifa on a free transfer.
Injuries blighted Brady’s career
Brady injured
Brady can count himself a little unlucky to run into so many injury issues throughout his career, with perhaps the most unfortunate one coming in December 2017, when a nasty injury against Leicester saw him miss the remainder of the season.
It was horrific timing for Brady, who had just found his feet at Burnley and was playing some great football as the Clarets challenged the European places.
The most disheartening thing for Brady in the whole sorry scenario was that he missed the chance to play in the Europa League qualifiers with Burnley, with the knee injury he suffered that day kept him out almost a full year.
Brady suffered a hefty list of injuries in his time at Burnley and missed a raft of games as a result, and although that ended his career at the very top, a move to Preston has suited him well.
He’s stayed largely injury free and has become a regular under Paul Heckingbottom of late, playing a full 90 minutes in midweek against the Canaries
That would undoubtedly have been a trip down memory lane for Norwich, who have fond on-pitch memories of Brady, but also know that he turned them a tidy profit off it.
