The tragic demise of Ricky van Wolfswinkel

On 1st July 2013 Ricky van Wolfswinkel became Norwich City’s record transfer when he joined the club for a reported fee of £8.5million. Having established ourselves in the Premier League with consecutive mid-table finishes, the Wolf would be the man to lead our assault into the top half.

Once admired by Sir Alex Ferguson, the excitement surrounding van Wolfswinkel’s arrival was well-justified. His previous two seasons at Sporting Lisbon had yielded 45 goals, including nine in the Europa League and a call-up to Louis van Gaal’s Dutch squad. Within days of his signing, ‘Wolf fever’ had hit the city, as he became of the face of every club marketing campaign and the offering of free ‘van Wolfswinkel’ shirt printing meant that every other fan donned his name on the back of their shirts. Expectations were higher than ever before, the pretty-faced Dutchman’s arrival had put Norwich well and truly on the map, what could possibly go wrong?

Despite a quiet performance, an inch perfect header against Everton on his debut only served to heighten expectations. Fans young and old left the ground howling, for we had a new hero on ours hands.

Or so we thought. The aforementioned header transpired to be Ricky’s only goal for the club that season. Come April, any shots in the pre-match warm up that the Dutchman managed to get on target were sarcastically cheered by City supporters. Neil Adam’s first game in charge away at Fulham late that season saw Ricky’s ‘invisible pass’ which soon became viral on social media sites, where, upon getting into some space, he turned and passed to, erm, no-one, with no yellow shirts even in the picture. An 8 month period had seen him turn from Dutch prodigy to Premier League whipping boy and laughing stock.

Norwich’s relegation presented the opportunity for a fresh start for van Wolfswinkel and an opportunity to revive his career, as Ligue 1 side St. Etienne came calling. Despite his failure in Norfolk, the majority of City supporters wished Ricky well - for he was clearly as affected as us by his demise. His confidence was absolutely shattered; for the sake of the guys career, at just 25, we wished for a positive outcome in France - not least so we could recoup some of our substantial outlay. In a more technical European league, he would thrive - away from the hustle and bustle of the English game that his body was so evidently not built for.

Any hopes that Ricky’s nightmare would be cut short were misplaced as he returned to the club the following May having scored just 5 goals in 28 appearances. St. Etienne unsurprisingly rejected their opportunity to turn his loan into a permanent.

Blinded by naivety and refusing to accept that our record signing was truly a dud, our promotion back to the Premier League left many Norwich fans quietly calling for the return of Ricky. Many attributed his first season failure to the negative tactics of Chris Hughton which, while Hughton’s drab style of play did quite clearly inhibit van Wolfswinkel, seemed too convenient an excuse. Especially when you consider that Grant Holt had managed 8 goals under the same guidance the season before. However, in the same way that he reinvigorated Sebastien Bassong, said fans ambitiously hoped Alex Neil would be able to do the same to Ricky.

However unlikely a happy return seemed, Neil offered the Dutchman and his fans alike a glimmer of hope when he was involved with the squad during pre-season. A goal against Cambridge United had fans frothing at the mouth - Ricky was back! And scoring! (Maybe he’d just simply found his level…)

Having been omitted from the first three Premier League squads, along came a Capital One Cup second round tie at Rotherham. A second-string City side saw Ricky leading the line, his first start for the club in over 18 months. He scored the winner, of course, and “Feed the Wolf and he will score” was sung from the terraces once more. A place on the bench in the following game at Southampton suggested that, against all the odds, the ex-Sporting Lisbon stars’ Norwich career could well be being rebuilt.

However, this was the last we saw of him. Just weeks later he was shipped out again, this time to La Liga in the form of Real Betis. He has seen just 156 minutes of game time in Spain, sometimes even failing to make the bench.

What went wrong?

With hindsight, there is the obvious judgement that van Wolfswinkel simply never had the necessary ability to bridge the gap in quality between the lesser European leagues and the Premier League. He wouldn’t be the first. For every Ruud van Nistelrooy there is a Mateja Kezman, who followed his 35 goal season with PSV in 2004 with just four for Chelsea. His forlorn and sheepish look that characterised much of his Norwich career was perhaps also symptomatic of a player who simply struggled to find the mental strength to arrest the first significant decline in form in his career.

Regardless of any diagnosis, the demise of Ricky van Wolfswinkel, having once been a rising member of the Dutch National team and a 22-year old who rejected a £10m move to Manchester United, is awfully tragic.

And, as a Norwich fan, I can’t help but feel somewhat responsible.