Jonathan Rowe's Norwich City absence explained amid Leeds United and Marseille interest

Norwich are kickstarting their Championship campaign against newly-promoted Oxford United and eyebrows were raised when Rowe did not feature in the Canaries squad named for the fixture.

He has been strongly linked with Leeds, while there have also been reports of interest from Ligue 1 side Marseille. In his pre-match interview with Sky Sports, Norwich boss Johannes Hoff Thorup explained Rowe’s absence.

He said: “My feelings are maybe not that important for now. What is important is that Jon and I had a meeting this morning and he came to me and said there’s so many things going on, so much interest and so on, he was maybe not ready to play today.

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"He was maybe not ready to perform today. For me, [it was] quite an easy decision to take to replace him with another guy.”

Leeds recently lost talismanic wideman Crysencio Summerville, who made a return to the Premier League with a move to West Ham United. Rowe has reportedly been earmarked as a potential replacement, while Crystal Palace’s Jesurun Rak-Sakyi is also said to be on the Leeds radar.

Rowe was a key figure for the Canaries last term, enjoying a breakthrough season at Carrow Road and breaking into the England under-21s side.