The Canaries have only added winger Ali Ahmed to their squad at the halfway stage of the transfer window, but remain in the market for a central midfielder and number 10 option.
City’s pursuit of West Ham midfielder Andy Irving is believed to be off due to interest from other clubs, but a host of other central midfield and creative options are on their radar, although it is increasingly unlikely that any business will get done before Saturday’s trip to Wrexham.
Norwich are continuing to explore all avenues in their mission to reinforce Clement’s squad and the Belgian believes that process will include difficult decisions – such as whether to use the loan market.
“I’m not a favourite of several loans in the club, because then you need to restart the story every six months or every year,” he explained.
“We don’t have a squad like that now. I prefer permanent, of course, like everybody does, and also the club and the owners, because then you’re not working for somebody else. If you develop a player well, he goes up in value and you can win out of that value.
“But it can be that in this transfer window, you come into a situation where a player is a stronger player who can be here on loan for six months in the situation that the club is, and to help the club during these six months, compared to another who can be permanent but who has less quality.
“So, those are choices that we need to make together, and we are making choices together here in the club.”
The reactive nature of the January transfer window makes business hard to complete and even playing a waiting game can be fraught with risks.
“That’s a little bit the story of the casino. You need some luck in things, and you can wait and wait, and you’re empty-handed,” Clement said.
Ali Ahmed is Norwich City’s only recruit of the window so far. (Image: Daniel Hambury/Focus Images Ltd)
“This is always a really, really tricky window for everybody, for every manager, for every club. So it’s difficult, and maybe if you’ve never lived this life, you understand it less, like for fans, but it’s a really complicated window always. Also, to get players in who are directly fit to play.
“Sometimes you need to make choices, to choose for somebody more for the long term, and to get him in because he was playing less in his old team, but because of that he’s now available on the market, for example. So those are also choices that you need to make. Or you take maybe somebody who is less talented than the other one, but you can step in directly and do something directly now.
“I hope we have a few choices, that’s already the challenge to create that, the recruitment team are working really hard on that, and we will see what happens now in these next two or three weeks.
“But what’s really important is that everybody is working really hard, so I’ve been here many hours in the club every day, but the recruitment team even more.”