I suspect that was before the cull amounted to Rogers, Tielemans, Digne, Martinez, Konsa, Watkins, Bailey ( 
).
That’s one way to get the wage bill down I guess.
I’m hoping he doesn’t go full Harvey Elliott on the loan deal just signed with Wan- Bissaka. 
Nope the twerp who sanctioned that farce discovered after the fact that was the hill he was going to die on and was promptly kicked out the balloon.
1 Like
This is reassuring.
1 Like
Sorry its X but Paddy Power on the money again
3 Likes
Villa about £50M to the good on this summer’s business. Seems pretty shrewd if Emery can get the new guys to play together.
Who knows what £50m number accounts for - I can see more ins and outs in progress.
I think two things have coalesced- the need to get the wage bill down, and Emery feeling he’d taken largely Dean Smiths side as far as he could.
It’s more nuanced than that.
Wages is a huge thing. It’s not just money, in money out per player.
Villa, Newcastle and Forest can’t compete on wages.
Villa have Champions League football, a manager who knows what he is doing, and still can’t hold onto their best players ffs.
They are a business that have money to invest in making their business grow and they are not allowed to make that investment! Instead they have to sell to keep within the boundaries set to enable legacy clubs to survive the odd year or three out of the top six (hello spuds and manure).
The rules.are.not there to stop clubs from going under. They are there to maintain the status quo.
1 Like
They are absolutely allowed to grow their business.
Overreaching on players and paying unsustainable wages is not growing your business. What Newcastle fans are salty about is not being allowed to fast track by having their owners just dump a wad of cash on them. Understandable as City (130+ charges outstanding) and Chelsea got away with it, in Chelsea’s case it almost (should) have seen them put into public ownership or folded.
And, incidentally, UEFA’s SCR rules are more punitive than the Premier League’s.
Oh, I get all that. But the premier league (and UEFA with their more stringent SCR) saying it is to stop clubs going under, when clearly it is not, just grates.
Villa, Newcastle and Forest just want to invest, make it a top nine. They are not able.
I get the thing about growing your business by increasing revenue and turnover, but that comes with success on the pitch bringing larger interest and sponsorship, which means paying big wages to attract the best players. They haven’t got the headroom to do that and bridge the gap, so the vultures come in and buy them up.
Arsenal have bought Konsa for £51M and as soon as Saliba is back from injury Konsa will be on the bench.
Villa won a just European trophy, their first of any kind in 30 years
Newcastle won the league cup, their first trophy in 55 years
What you want is fast-tracking. The list of clubs to go under due to financial mismanagement is long and inglorious.
Expand you grounds, improve training grounds, buy and sell players smartly, grow commercial revenues. This is organic growth. Growth has fuck all to do with ‘investing’ (lol) in transfers.
Well Villa’s ground (north stand) is being pulled apart and rebuilt as we speak.
Newcastle have plans for a new stadium, or expansion of existing, depending on the listed building status of nearby buildings, being investigated now, and a new training ground being progressed subject to land purchase.
Not sure about Forest.
Revenue is everything in the current system. As Mark points out above, the kind of want it all and want it now radical transformations we saw from Chelsea and then Man City have been completely stamped on but have had the result of letting those two horses run wild and free after the gate was bolted. To my eyes they continue to use that wealth jump to get away with continued rule bending/ breaking, and what clubs who now find themselves with rich owners would love to copy but its now too late.
The only way to try to compete on a revenue and resultant squad value/ total wage basis is to a. get into the gravy train that is the Champions League on a consistent year on year basis; and b. grow your commercial revenue - which is more about getting money from fans away from traditional matchday receipts - ie selling shirts and merch to a much wider fanbase across the UK and overseas.
As far as Villa are concerned, they’ve pushed to the very limits (and over them having been wrist slapped by EUFA) of what they could get away with on wage to revenue and now there’s no room left (until the revenue streams above grow).
So when their star players want to match the wages of the players at clubs with much bigger wage budgets, or one of those clubs wants to poach them, Villa have got no choice but to let them go and rebuild. Its just the way it is until the success Emery has brought translates into bigger revenues etc. Of course it will now take a minor miracle to get into the CL places again with a brand new squad.
TL;DR - you know money has thoroughly ruined football when fans increasingly talk about club finances and financial regulations!
3 Likes
I keep saying it but if they let the owners keep the profits from merchandise , sponsorship etc and players fees and wages were worked out on gate receipts by some ratio , it would be a lot simpler.
It would get back to some sort of meritocracy.
Liverpool and Manchester United etc have bigger stadiums than Crystal Palace , Villa etc.
Shef Wed bigger and Argyle but Argyle bigger than Wycombe .
The main thing is getting player wages down and agents milking it.
Surely the Owners would love to pay players less wages.
I often think that a wage cap system, like in the NFL, would make sense. The problem is that the NFL is a closed system with no promotion or relegation, and no international competition.
When you consider those factors, it’s hard to come up with a fair system that might work. Much of the reason the EFL has done so well is because of how brutally commercial it has been - all the players want to be here for the high wages. Our teams have overperformed in Europe, at least up to the final stages, and everyone likes this.
I strongly agree with the principle of separating the business and the football - let the ‘ownership’ of a club be related to the merch and other sundries, not the players. But it’s hard to see how that could be realised in practice.
Deservedly ahead
Shambles!
1 Like
