NORWICH City boss Glenn Roeder agreed to Jamie Cureton's three-month loan deal to Barnsley because the striker had gone stale, become disenchanted and there were "younger, fresher" players knocking on the first team door.
While Roeder says he has left the door open for the 33-year to come back, some of his remarks seem to point the other way.
Talking to the Norwich media he said the move to South Yorkshire "might be just what he needs to kick-start his playing first team football again, because I have noticed in the last month it has really been getting him down and wearing him out.
'When you are 33 you know realistically you are in the last couple of seasons of your career and you don't want to be spending any more time than you have to in the stands or on the bench.
"The few times he had got on to the pitch recently he didn't seem the same Jamie Cureton.
"There are a couple of young players in Arturo and OJ (Koroma) who are trying to push their way into the team - younger, fresher legs.
"He didn't let us down in a couple of games he was involved in and as a 33-year-old he was getting more and more frustrated. You could see it was really getting him down.''
The Bristol born forward was under no misapprehension how far he'd fallen down the pecking order.
"There were four strikers ahead of me at Norwich, three of them are on loan,'' he said.
The well-travelled striker scored 14 times last season. Cureton was brought in after the head injury to Iain Hume. Hume is Barnsley's second top scorer with four, behind Jon Macken, who has hit four in his last six games.
Cureton came on as a substitute for Simon Whaley after an hour in the Reds' defeat at Nottingham Forest last Saturday.
Form guide: Barnsley, who play high flying Reading on Saturday need some consistency: their last five results have been lost, won, lost, won, lost, won! Reading have lost only once in their last six.
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