Norwich manager Alex Neil has backed his decision to sell Lewis Grabban back to Bournemouth, saying the striker had “run his course” at the club.
The 28-year-old has rejoined the Cherries in what is believed to be an £8million deal, a considerable profit on what Norwich paid for Grabban in the summer of 2014.
Despite an impressive first campaign at Carrow Road, scoring 12 goals to guide the club to promotion to the Premier League, Grabban featured only eight times this season.
Grabban stormed out of the Norwich team hotel ahead of the Capital One Cup tie at Rotherham in August, reportedly frustrated at not being able to see a move to Bournemouth pushed through.
Neil believes that given the circumstances and the fee of the transfer, sanctioning the move was a good decision with the aim to bring in new recruits.
Speaking ahead of tomorrow’s Premier League game against Stoke, Neil said: “We just felt, for us, he was a player who had run his course at Norwich really. He was not involved, he was not in our squads.
“Lewis contributed greatly to us getting promoted and started the season for us, then we had a couple of incidents afterwards, and to be honest I don’t think we really recovered from that.
“I think it was one of those where Lewis had come to the conclusion that he was best suited to playing elsewhere, and we agreed with that.
“Sometimes players have their heads turned and get their heart set on going elsewhere, and I think when that happens at times it becomes a difficult one, as you try and get the best out of a player and get him focused on his job.
“But in Lewis’ situation? There was too much water under the bridge and it just made sense, because we were not utilising his talents.
“We had a commodity there that wasn’t supplying anything for us, so what we had to do was try and get the best value for that, re-invest it and bring someone in who can contribute.”
Grabban could line up against his old club when Norwich head to Bournemouth next weekend, as Neil confirmed there was no exclusion clause as part of the deal.
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