Norwich face a dilemma with this out-of-form striker

Norwich’s record signing is surely one of their worst signings. One goal – a decent header right at the start of the campaign – all year in a relegation season kind of says it all. As Norwich bounced back up, Ricky Van Wolfswinkel took refuge at French club St Etienne where again he was disappointing.A short period just before Christmas where Van Wolfswinkel scored a few goals was really all he delivered at Sainté in a disappointing spell. In fact, just after he signed I thought it was a wonderful move. One where he’d go there and prove that he was a good striker after a disappointing year.He was playing in a team that did well this season, they finished 5th in the French league, but almost pipped Marseille and Monaco to their third and final Champions League spot, they pushed the bigger teams all the way.Christophe Galtier’s men even had an option to buy RvW from Norwich, but are reportedly looking at other leads instead of signing the Dutchman. And that probably tells you what you need to know about his future at Carrow Road, too. He did better last season than he did this time around, but that’s really not saying much, and Norwich would presumably prefer to trust the players that did so well last season – the likes of Cameron Jerome – or bring in someone more prolific in the Premier League.So what happens now? St Etienne don’t want him and nor do Norwich?It’s so strange that a player who did so well at Sporting Lisbon and sealed a move to a Premier League club for a club-record fee should just disappear after two seasons. Even if he wasn’t cut out for England, you’d think that his goalscoring prowess would have been good enough to do more damage in France.That’s not quite RvW’s game, to be fair. He’s big and strong and looks to bring others into play too, he’s not a pure goalscorer, more of a target man. But that doesn’t help in these situations. A striker who scores six league goals in two seasons is never going to command a big money move – and that’s what St Etienne would be doing if they signed him, £7m is a lot of money for a flop, especially when you’re a French club that isn’t PSG or Monaco.In fact, Sainté let Franck Tabanou go to Swansea for something reported to be over £3m. It’s not a lot of cash for one of your best players in this day and age.So it looks like Norwich will either have to sell for much less than what the French club agreed upon last summer or face a season with a big earner warming the bench, because it doesn’t look like another club will be found in a hurry – especially not for £7m.The trouble is, whichever club he ends up at come the start of September, Van Wolfswinkel will find it hard to shine.His goals in France this season seemed to come in spates. He’s clearly a confidence player, and some of the times last season when he was through on goal he seemed to want to take another touch or square it to a teammate rather than go it alone. That smacks of a player low on confidence, and you could see it was bothering him.The fact that neither his parent club or former loan club seem to want him will do nothing for his confidence and that’s sad. For a player who came to England with a bit of a fanfare and for such a big fee it’s quite a disappointment.I don’t know what’s next for Van Wolfswinkel, but I do know that in order to be a success he needs to find confidence again. If he does stay at Carrow Road, it’ll be up to Alex Neil to give him that confidence again. He’s clearly a player with some class about him, and an on-form Van Wolfswinkel could be an asset, especially for a promoted club with ambition. But an off-form Van Wolfswinkel is not even worthy of a place on the bench. It’s a big season for him wherever he ends up.I hope he finds some confidence though, because when he does he’s fun to watch.[ad_pod id=’ricco’ align=’center’]