Norwich City backed to sign 22-year-old who could feature in 2026 World Cup | OneFootball

Norwich City will have to be wary about the hierarchy of their defence if they pursue a move for NEC Nijmegen defender Deveron Fonville.

Norwich City find themselves tucked inside the top-half of the Championship table and finishing with a bit of a flourish, albeit not really in the hunt for a top six spot and the play-off places.

That isn’t too bad a thing for this year, though, with the Canaries spending a lot of the campaign looking as though they would be scrapping for their second-tier status before the appointment of Philippe Clement.

The former Rangers and Monaco boss has done an excellent job at Carrow Road and, after a fairly busy summer transfer window in 2024, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see Norwich attack the market again this summer.

With Clement at the helm, there will also be a feeling that they should be sustaining a promotion challenge next season, regardless of what business they do get that done.

That won’t stop them being active and one man that they are being linked with for this summer is NEC Nimegen centre-back Deveron Fonville.

Deveron Fonville may be wary of the competition at Norwich

Norwich have some impressive defensive options at their disposal and the signing of another defender would have to be an impressive one if they were to force their way into being a key man in a stacked back-line.

However, even with the competition for places being something to be wary of, FLW’s Norwich City Fan Pundit Zeke Downes does believe that Fonville is the type of player that Norwich should be targeting.

“I think that we would need another one because we are losing (Shane) Duffy, or I hope we are, and we’ve got (Ruairi) McConville, (Jose) Cordoba and (Harry) Darling, who are mainstays really, and then you’ve got (Jakov) Medic, who I can see will want to a move away if he is the fourth-choice.

“I think we may end up needing to get another one and then we’ve got four options and then a younger centre-back would be ideal, someone who won’t be demanding to play every single game.

“Obviously if he’s had experience chasing Champions League qualification, he might want to look for a team where he would be a starter but he is the right sort of player we would be looking for.”

Deveron Fonville has emerged as a rising star for NEC

Having begun in the academy of PSV Eindhoven and then Utrecht, Deveron Fonville began his professional career with Jong Utrecht before moves in the lower leagues to USV Hercules, IJSselmeervogels and Dordrecht.

In the summer of 2025, off the back of an impressive eighth placed finish in the Eredivisie, NEC brought Fonville to the Gofferstadion and they have performed extremely well.

Fonville has established himself as a bit of a key man for NEC as they sit third, ahead of the likes of Twente, Ajax and AZ Alkmaar, and in the hunt for UEFA Champions League qualification.

The 22-year-old Dutch-born centre-back, who could represent Curacao at the 2026 FIFA World Cup this summer, will have a fight on his hands to make himself a starter at City but he is emerging as one of the more exciting prospects of the chasing pack in the Eredivisie.

The left-footer, who can also indeed play at left-back, has grown into becoming a first-team regular as the season has gone on, having been on the periphery of things at the start of the campaign as a youngster who had just arrived.

Having started on the opening day of the season against PSV, Fonville didn’t start again until facing Volendam in mid-December. That was the start of a run of nine starts in the next 15 games for NEC.