David Wagner has ‘no concern’ Jon Rowe could leave Norwich in transfer window
David Wagner has “no concern” about the possibility of Jon Rowe leaving Norwich this month after the young winger underlined why he is so highly-rated with a moment of magic at Hull.
Rowe has reportedly been courting interest from West Ham and Aston Villa and the 20-year-old took his tally for the season to a dozen in all competitions with a fabulous solo goal at the MKM Stadium.
After dispossessing Tyler Morton, Rowe jinked forwards then ghosted past a couple of defenders before dispatching a shot with the outside of his right boot, which arced past Ryan Allsop and into the net.
While he helped Norwich record a 2-1 victory to move to within two points and places of the Sky Bet Championship play-offs, interest in Rowe may now increase following his latest star showing.
But when asked how hard it will be to keep hold of Rowe in this transfer window, Wagner said: “I have no concern that there is any problems.”
The Norwich manager was impressed with the overall display of a player who only made his first senior start in the reverse fixture at the outset of the season in August – which the Canaries also won 2-1.
Wagner added: “Obviously the goal was great, this is what he can produce. We have seen this a few times this season. I liked it a lot but what I liked as well was how he worked and defended.
“The effort and the shift he put in defensively for the team was technically very smart. He really supported his full-back, it was a good performance from him.
“If you consider he’s quite young and he made his first senior start at the beginning of the season, it makes it more interesting.”
Christian Fassnacht, who replaced Rowe in the closing stages, struck in the 88th minute and even though Morton’s injury-time screamer set up a grandstand finale, Norwich clung on for a first win of 2024.
After Hull slipped to a fourth defeat in five matches and missed out on a chance to move into the top six, boss Liam Rosenior admitted his frustration with referee Andrew Kitchen.
Norwich defender Dimitrios Giannoulis was perhaps lucky to avoid a red card moments before Rowe’s 36th-minute opener after swinging an arm at Lewie Coyle, while Aaron Connolly was substituted earlier having suffered a concussion.
A collision with visiting goalkeeper Angus Gunn left Connolly needing treatment before he was withdrawn after a quarter of an hour but what especially irked Rosenior was that Norwich were awarded a free-kick from the incident.
Rosenior said: “I can understand why the goalkeeper’s come out, I don’t know if you can punish him because they’re both going for the ball but it’s clearly our free-kick at the least.
“For us to be penalised for that pretty much sums up how I feel the refereeing decisions have gone against us this season. I thought his performance helped them in every aspect of the game.
“We wanted to play football, we wanted to restart the game, they wanted to slow the game down and make tactical fouls and the referee bought every single one.”