Monday 14 July 2014 19:58, UK
Neil Adams says nobody is set to leave Norwich City at the moment after leaving Sebastien Bassong out of their opening pre-season game.
The centre-back was omitted from Adams’ 21-man squad for the weekend friendly win at Dereham and instead played 60 minutes for the development set-up in a 3-1 defeat at Boston United.
Bassong did not feature under Adams at the end of last season and speculation has suggested he could be moved on following their relegation from the Championship, but the Norwich boss insists no departures are imminent.
Adams has instead challenged Bassong to convince him that he should be involved with the first team.
“He is our player and if we feel we need to use him then we will,” Adams said in the Norwich Evening News.
“He has trained and played with the development squad so far, but he is our player.
“There is nobody who is going at the minute, but it is my job to manage the squad and do that for every situation.
“Seb played at Boston and I will speak to the coaches to see how he has done and we’ll take it from there.”
Ricky van Wolfswinkel, Wes Hoolahan and Anthony Pilkington also missed the Dereham win, along with Martin Olsson, who had a shoulder problem at the end of last season but did not require surgery.
Adams said: “Ricky is fine. He didn’t train on Friday but he trained on Saturday with the rest of those lads.
“Martin is looking sharp. He has not had to go and get the surgery on his shoulder. He had a family illness, which we don’t obviously need to go into, but he was given a little bit of extra time off and he is back with us now and he is fine.
“He is just a little bit behind the squad but he will be at Braintree.”
