Norwich City may be regretting transfer mishap amid multi-million pound Crystal Palace bid | OneFootball

The Premier League club have submitted a heavy bid to a Belgian side for the former Norwich man.

Norwich City may have a few regrets following news of interest in Club Brugge attacker Christos Tzolis from Crystal Palace.

Palace are in search of their Eberechi Eze replacement as it appears talks over his move to Tottenham Hotspur are advancing.

David Ornstein of The Athletic has reported that the Eagles have identified Club Brugge’s Tzolis as a potential candidate to fill the vacancy.

Given the figures involved and what Norwich saw both financially and on the pitch from the Greece international, there may be a few regrets in Norfolk over their decision to offload the Greece international.

Christos Tzolis subject of big-money interest from Crystal Palace

The Telegraph journalist Mike McGrath stated that Palace have already made a €30m/£25.9m bid for Tzolis, seeing him as their ideal successor to Eze.

It follows a hugely impressive 2024/25 season for the 23-year-old, having bagged 21 goals and 14 assists in 56 games during his first season with Belgian giants Brugge.

Given those immense stats, and based on the same report, Brugge value the midfielder at closer to €40m/£34.5m.

Regardless of where the two parties find a meeting point, if they indeed do, it will represent a significant move, more to the annoyance of Norwich.

Norwich City had Christos Tzolis in the palm of their hands

Should the Palace deal go through, it won’t be Tzolis’ first time in England, having moved from PAOK to Norwich in the summer of 2021, in a substantial deal worth £8.8m when the club were plying their trade in the Premier League after winning promotion in 2020/21.

The fee paid and the five-year deal the then-19-year-old was handed show how highly the Canaries rated him, but it didn’t quite work out in Norfolk for the versatile midfielder.

He made just 14 Premier League appearances in his first season as Norwich suffered an immediate return to the second tier, and was loaned to Dutch side FC Twente for the first half of the 2022/23 season.

After scoring just once in 10 Eredivisie appearances there, he returned to Carrow Road for the second half of that campaign, but made just 13 second tier appearances during that term, as the Canaries recorded a highly disappointing 13th-placed finish.

At that point, it seemed clear to Norwich that it had been a failed venture, and they looked to sell the Greek playmaker.

Norwich City will be left with plenty of regrets now

The Championship club decided to cut their losses in 2023, sanctioning a loan move to Fortuna Dusseldorf, which became permanent through an option-to-buy clause for a fee €3.5m a year later, a significant loss on their original investment.

Per the terms of a sell-on clause inserted in the deal, they did reportedly receive 10 per cent of Tzolis’ €6.5m move to Club Brugge, but that still leaves them some distance from breaking even on the 2021 deal.

To hear figures of between €30m-€40m now being thrown around just over a year later will provoke plenty of regret for Norwich, especially given that Tzolis would have had a year left to run on his original deal had they just stuck to their guns.

Eze is known as one of the most exciting attackers in England at the moment, and Palace have an eye for a development signing, so the fact that they’ve landed on Tzolis is a strong show of faith.

A hefty transfer fee will be enough to frustrate those at Carrow Road in the circumstances, but it will rub further salt in the wound if he goes on to light up the Premier League over the coming seasons.

It will be a lesson for the Canaries that sometimes players just need some extra time and support to reach their full potential.