On 19th May 2013, Grant Holt scored his 78th and final goal for the Canaries in a 3-2 win at Manchester City. Just over two months later the hugely popular striker and club captain left Carrow Road and signed for Wigan Athletic in a shock £2m deal. Norwich manager Chris Hughton allowed Holt to leave after spending £13.5m on two new strikers, Ricky Van Wolfswinkel and Gary Hooper. Holt's career has slid downhill since he left Carrow Road. Therefore I have to ask the question, did Chris Hughton ruin Grant Holt's career?

Let's go back to the start of Grant Holt's Norwich career. Signed by Canary legend Bryan Gunn for £400,000 from Shrewsbury Town in July 2009 I think it's fair to say that bringing Holt to the club was probably the only thing that Gunny got right during his disastrous spell as manager.

After scoring 53 goals in his first two seasons at the club and helping Norwich to consecutive promotions Holt's Premier League prudentials were thrown into question but he proved all his doubters wrong by scoring 15 goals in his maiden season in the top flight and was tipped for a call up to Roy Hodgson's England squad with the European Championships in Poland and the Ukraine on the horizon. Holt was the 2nd top scoring Englishman in the Premier League after Wayne Rooney. However Hodgson didn't even call up Holt for any of the friendlies leading up to the tournament and instead selected Liverpool's injury prone £35m misfit Andy Carroll who scored only 4 Premier League goals in 2011/12.

In the summer of 2012 after Holt's 3rd consecutive Player of the Season success (in fact Holt is the only Canary to win the Barry Butler Memorial Trophy three times), Paul Lambert left the club to manage Aston Villa and "Mr Nice Guy" Chris Hughton was installed as his replacement.Hughton abandoned his predecessor's attacking style of football for a more defensive approach and played Holt mostly as a lone striker. Even though Hughton's tactics kept Norwich up, the big frontman scored only 8 Premier League goals and didn't seem happy with the team's style of play. Indeed Holt later remarked that Hughton's "opinions were different to mine but that's football sometimes".

Since leaving Carrow Road in 2012 and joining Wigan Athletic, Holt has found the net on only 5 occasions and played for four different managers at the DW Stadium. He's been loaned out to Aston Villa, Huddersfield Town and Wolverhampton Wanderers and had a knee operation that sidelined him for ten months. Basically it's been a struggle for the player nicknamed "Horse" (feed the horse and he will score!) by his former Norwich team mates. Yet the Canary legend has no hard feelings towards Chris Hughton, "He's probably one of the nicest guys in football but he wasn't my cup of tea", he said. Some players would be bitter and critical but Grant Holt has dignity and is a true gentleman. Let's hope his luck begins to change soon!

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