Town boss Paul Jewell says skipper David Norris has told him that he wants to stay with the Blues despite the player’s agent having suggested he plan for a 2011/12 without the midfielder. Norris is one of the 21 players whose current contract is up at the end of the season.
Jewell says he was given the impression that Norris, a £2.2 million January 2008 signing from Plymouth, would be on his way when he spoke to his representative, while the player himself appears more disposed towards remaining at Portman Road: "I spoke to Chuck’s agent last week and basically his agent was saying to me that you can plan without David Norris for next year because he’s got a few offers on the table from other clubs.
"I spoke to Chuck yesterday and I think that he probably wants to stay here, so I’m going to speak to his agent again to see whether we can come to some kind of agreement. But if he’s got an offer [from another club] that’s mind-blowing for him, I understand that he has to put his family first.”
In January Portsmouth made a £250,000 offer for the 30-year-old, while Crystal Palace made a joint £800,000 bid for Norris and central defender Damien Delaney, who was offered a new deal by Town earlier in the week.
Pompey boss Steve Cotterill has made no secret of his desire to sign Norris, much to Jewell’s annoyance — "I think some of the comments he made were just wrong” — while the Eagles and other clubs could also be targeting the Peterborough-born player, with Leeds, Nottingham Forest and Premier League Wigan all linked by one of this morning's papers.
Norris turned down a new Town deal before Christmas because he wanted a three-year contract as opposed to the two years offered by the Blues and Jewell says that ideally the situation ought to have been sorted sooner: "At the end of the day you don’t blame Chuck because the contract issue probably should have been dealt with earlier, but that happens in football, we all make mistakes and we’ve got to learn from it.
"I think the club made David what they considered a decent offer a while ago. Maybe there wasn’t enough dialogue between the two parties, but I don’t really know.
"I knew when I got here there were a few contract issues but Chuck has been a terrific professional and I know he wants to stay from what he said yesterday. But if he’s got an offer that secures his family for the next three years and the rest of his life, no one blames him for doing it.”
Jewell says all the players whose current deals are up at the end of June have behaved impeccably despite the lack of certainty regarding their futures: "When it comes to this late stage I can do nothing but speak very highly of the players involved because even though they were out of contract and we stopped the possibility of them moving [in January], they’ve been outstanding professionals.
"Never for one minute have they sulked, in fact the total opposite. They’ve been brilliant. I have no problem if David’s got an offer which sets up him and his family for the rest of his life, I fully understand that.
"But, if there’s something we can do, we’re interested in trying to keep him. If we could keep him, we’d love to keep him but obviously I have to work within a budget, like most managers do, and because he’s a free transfer there’s a lot of interest in him and his agent’s words were ‘You can plan without him for next year’.
"I spoke to Chuck yesterday and I now want to speak to his agent to see where they are with their figures to see if we can get somewhere close to them.”
The Town manager is hopeful that Delaney and Gareth McAuley, who he told would be given written contract offers before they went away on international duty, will stay with the club: "I’ve been speaking to them quite regularly and as everyone knows I met the owner last week in Ireland and came up with some packages and have put them to their agents and to the players. Hopefully they’ll come back with a positive answer.
"If they do, then great, if they don’t, that’s their prerogative. I think they’ve both been offered two years turning into three, although I’m not quite sure.”
Jewell would love Norris to join them at Portman Road for next season, but if not says both club and player will be fine: "If a sensible deal can be done I’d love to do a deal. If it can’t be, it can’t.
"We’re all big boys and David Norris will survive without Ipswich and Ipswich will survive without David Norris. That’s life.”