Grant Holt's festive Norwich City dilemma

I guess it’s a sign of how well our season is going that has given rise to rumours circulating about the Norwich City future of Grant Holt.
Despite The Canaries this week releasing a short and succinct statement saying ‘He’s not for sale’, our Captain Fantastic has been linked with possible moves to Wigan, West Ham, Bolton and Blackpool when the transfer window opens in just over a week.
Trying not to be biased for a minute, I’m not sure this is the right time for Holt to move.
I know he’s a Carlisle man and it is believed he spends a fair bit of time going back to that part of the world to see his family. This would make a move to the north west ideal for him. But is Wigan or Blackpool in January 2011 the place he really wants to be?
Not since Dean Ashton departed from Carrow Road five January transfer windows ago has such a key player left the club and a move to the top flight right now would be quite remarkable for Holt.
For a modern day footballing journeyman, Holt’s career has really taken off in the last 18 months. A year and a half ago he was a Shrewsbury player, filling his boots with goals galore in League Two.
Bryan Gunn signed him in the summer of 2009 and he starred in League One alongside Wes Hoolahan and Chris Martin before returning to the Championship where he’d previously played for Nottingham Forest and Sheffield Wednesday.
I remember seeing Holt for the first time in a Norwich shirt against Wigan on the final day of July the summer before last in a pre-season friendly.
Norwich beat Wigan 3-2 that day and Holt looked great getting stuck in against Titus Bramble just seven days before the 7-1 home demolition by Colchester that pretty much defined our League One campaign.
This season, well more specifically, in the last four weeks, Holt’s stock has really risen. That treble against Ipswich on the telly, how we missed him against Portsmouth and that brace at Coventry have underlined how massively important a player he is for us to keep.
Should Norwich fail to make it to the Premier League this season it is likely that we will either be knocked out in the play-offs or fall just outside the top six. That would be a remarkable achievement given where the club was when Holt joined.
I don’t think any Norwich fan would begrudge Holt moving on in the summer to pastures new , I am sure we would all do the same in our late 20s having never played in the Premier League.
But is a certain relegation fight at the likes of Wigan or West Ham really the right move for a man valued at £2 million?
I’m sure Holt knows that he’d be thrown in to the deep end and there’s a huge chance he’d end up back in the Championship next summer. He certainly won’t get as much joy up front against the likes of Nemanja Vidic as he did against Damien Delaney.
So why not wait? Fair enough, City don’t make it up and he goes and joins a team like QPR in the Premier League. That would be a good move for him. He’d be there from the start of the season and I for one would wish him all the best.
But for the skipper to leave in January with Norwich poised for a potential shot at the Premier League? It makes no sense.
Holt is loved by this club and I am sure he’d have far more pride captaining Norwich in the Premier League than being booed next autumn at Carrow Road in the colours of someone like West Ham.
Games against QPR and Middlesbrough at the start of January could shape our season. Lose them both, slip down the table and Holt could be left out of the side against Leyton Orient which would be ominous.
But a New Year’s Day hammering of QPR and something from Middlesbrough would send out the message that in 2011, City are promotion contenders and, more importantly, Grant Holt really is not for sale.