Town manager Kieran McKenna says he’s had a few jokes with former Norwich midfielder Marcelino Nunez ahead of Sunday’s East Anglian derby but doesn’t believe the Chilean international is able to give him too much additional insight into Sunday’s visitors.
Nunez, 25, the scorer of the only goal for the Canaries when the teams last met at Carrow Road in April 2024, crossed the Norfolk-Suffolk border at the end of August for an initial £7.5 million, becoming the first senior player to make the switch since Andy Marshall’s ill-fated move in the summer of 2001.
McKenna says he’s not spoken to Nunez, who made his full debut at Bristol City on Tuesday, too much more this week ahead of the game against his old club.
"Not really,” he said. "We've had a few jokes and tapped into him about a few things, but now there are no secrets out there, everyone watches each other’s games.
"Of course, they’ve watched our games. We had staff at the game [the 1-0 home loss to West Brom] the other night. You watch between five and ten games, even me as a manager, analysts do more.
"So there are no secrets. We know what they like to do, what their strengths are and areas that we think we can try to hurt them. We know their manager [Liam Manning] well, we’ve come up against him at different times. I don't think there are any good secrets either way.
"We’re really happy to have Marcelino on our side, but in terms of any special insight, I don't think there's a massive gain on that.”
Nunez was one of a number of additions for whom the Blues paid significant money in the summer, something other bosses have started alluding to in their press conferences.
Bristol City boss Gerhard Struber referred to Town as having a "£200 million in transfer value” following the 1-1 draw at Ashton Gate on Tuesday, while Norwich boss Manning has referred to "the money they’ve spent” in his pre-match comments. But McKenna says it’s not something he’s spent much time considering.
"I haven't really thought about it much, to be honest,” he said. "I don't think it has a lot of impact.
"I think we got promoted from the Championship with a highest spend of less than £1.5 million and I’m not sure when that's been done before or if it’s been done before.
"So I don’t think anyone can be the team that wants to cry that it’s impossible to do well in this division without spending transfer fees, because it is.
"I think there are so many good players available in the Championship, so many players you can get on loan, so many free agents you can pick up. The volume of good players you can play in the Championship is really high.
"So the gap between the squads, the quality of the players across the levels is really, really close, closer than any division in world football, probably.
"We know how competitive it is. We know our model since we started in League One has been to try to invest in high-potential young players.
"When we invested in Leif Davis for a million pounds in League One, that was a big story. We could sell them now for probably 20 to 30 times that.
"We sold the two players [Liam Delap and Omari Hutchinson], our biggest signings, last summer for club record fees of not much short of, I don't know, whatever it was, £70, £80 million this summer.
"If we wanted to sell any of the players that we invested in so far, I think there'd be a pretty good cash return.
"We know the reality of the division and how hard it is. Any football economists would tell you that transfer fees don't equate to points in too many leagues. There’s a hell of a lot of other things that make up a winning team. We know that.
"We also know that we’ve been well supported by the ownership over the last four years to invest in high-potential young players, especially young British players because you’re going to pay a premium at times, but you also know the returns are really high.
"We’re really comfortable with the business that the club’s done over the years and the sort of model that's been in place.
"If anyone else wants to try and use it as an influence or an outcome of a game, then I don’t know, I’m sure the supporters will enjoy being on that foot rather than being a team who were underinvested in for so many years.”