Norwich City facing double transfer concern - It must be sorted by August 9th | OneFootball

Norwich City must resolve the futures of star duo Borja Sainz and Josh Sargent before the start of the new Championship season.

A new era is underway at Norwich City following the appointment of Liam Manning as the club's new head coach.

Norwich made the decision to part company with Johannes Hoff Thorup in April after missing out on the play-offs, and the move came as something of a surprise given that many believed he had been brought in to oversee a long-term project.

Jack Wilshere took interim charge of the Canaries after Thorup's exit, but despite picking up four points from his two games at the helm, he was overlooked for the permanent job and has now left Carrow Road altogether.

Pep Lijnders and Gary O'Neil were both strongly linked with Norwich, but they instead opted to poach Manning from Bristol City, who he led to a sixth-placed finish in the Championship last season, and they have paid a reported compensation fee of £800,000 to secure his services.

With an arguably better squad and greater financial resources to work with, Manning will be excited about what he can achieve with his new club, but the transfer sagas involving star duo Borja Sainz and Josh Sargent are threatening to cast a shadow over his preparations for the season.

Norwich City will have looming Borja Sainz, Josh Sargent fear

Sainz enjoyed an outstanding season for Norwich last term, scoring 19 goals and providing four assists in 43 appearances in all competitions, albeit his form did drop off significantly following the turn of the year, with only three of those strikes coming in the second half of the campaign.

The 24-year-old finished as the joint-second highest scorer in the Championship last season along with Burnley's Josh Brownhill, with only Leeds United's Joel Piroe outscoring the duo, and, as expected, he is attracting significant interest from elsewhere this summer.

While it is unclear exactly who his suitors are at this stage, Norwich are believed to have received formal bids for Sainz from clubs in Italy and Portugal, while teams from Turkey, Spain and England are also keen on the winger, with negotiations currently said to be taking place about a possible sale.

Sargent made a slow start to life at Carrow Road after his £8 million move from Werder Bremen in the summer of 2021, but he has certainly found his feet in the Championship, reaching double figures for goals in each of the last three seasons.

Despite the fact he missed almost three months of the campaign after undergoing groin surgery, this season proved to be no different, with Sargent scoring 15 goals and providing five assists in 33 appearances, and like Sainz, he is also emerging on the radar of other clubs.

Sargent has been linked with Leeds United and Nottingham Forest in recent months, while the Canaries reportedly held discussions with MLS side FC Cincinnati over the USA international last year, and it was claimed earlier this week that he could be a potential target for Italian outfit Roma this summer.

The Norwich hierarchy are said to be relaxed over Sargent's situation, but with the future of two of their key players up in the air, they cannot allow the uncertainty to drag on into the new season.

Norwich City must avoid Jonathan Rowe repeat with Borja Sainz and Josh Sargent

For the second consecutive year, Norwich are facing the threat of losing some of their stars, but while the £20 million sale of Gabriel Sara to Galatasaray was completed relatively smoothly last summer, the same cannot be said for Jonathan Rowe's exit.

As speculation continued to build over his future, Rowe pulled out of the squad for the opening game against Oxford United just hours before kick-off, and the Canaries duly went on to lose 2-0 to the newly-promoted U's, which meant that both the season and Thorup's reign got off to the worst possible start.

In truth, Thorup's time at Carrow Road never really recovered from that, particularly after further controversial transfer sagas involving Adam Idah and Abu Kamara, and Norwich must seek a quick resolution to Sainz and Sargent's futures in order to avoid a similar fate befalling Manning before his tenure has even got underway.

Of course, the Canaries will understandably want to keep hold of their best players, and, failing that, they will want to secure the highest possible transfer fee for them, which does sometimes require waiting until later in the window to finalise deals, but they cannot risk the headlines surrounding Sainz and Sargent dominating the early weeks of the season, rather than on-field events.

Norwich are believed to be open to selling Sainz this summer instead of losing him for free next year, but with Sargent under contract until the summer of 2028, they may take a firmer stance when it comes to sanctioning the striker's exit.

However, should either or both of Sainz and Sargent depart, the Canaries would need to find replacements, which will be no easy task given the pair's quality, and they must ensure they give themselves adequate time to reinvest the money they receive.