CanaryCuddles

Oh no

I think he needs to get match fit though. That means playing. It might be more a question of when to sub him.

Yes I thought he played alright. First half anyway

Season's not even started yet

A couple of seasons ago villa would have been a sideways move, they are now mega rich and intent on buying their way to being a top 6 club. Whether they achieve that who knows, but seems in a league where wealth equates to success they have managed to convince Emi of it. Time will tell whether this was a mistake for him, but probably the huge salary they are paying him makes the risk worth it in his mind. Its a massive shame because had we kept Emi, sold Aarons and Cantwell then reinvested that in the team I think we would have a good chance. We now have a much harder job to rebuild the team without our main creator, which means very little margin for error in the transfer market and also hoping have enough time to get the team firing without him before the season starts. Anyway done now. OTBC

The previous deal with dafabet was described as "record breaking" so bk8 must be offering g a lot. I wonder if we had to pay anything to terminate the dafabet deal early or whether there was some kind of break clause (upon promotion? ). Yes massively embarrassing and someone really messed up by not doing some basic diligence on bk8. Really surprised actually the club has been caught out on this. Webber certainly talks the talk on being focused on details

That's the spirit

Could be wrong but I think what he means is that our entire transfer budget was rumoured to be just 15m and we just added more than double that amount to the warchest by selling Emi. I.e 45m total. Its just worded very badly.

He actually has money to spend this time though, which might make things easier.

You've got to think if the club could have kept him for another season they surely would have. Webber won't be blind to the issues this creates. It all goes back to whatever deal they made with Emi last season. And if he had gone then we would surely be in a worse position than we are now?

No guarantees in terms of how transfers will turn out of course, but got to think Emi leaving was no surprise to the club so they have had plenty of time to put a strategy in place and assess potential signings. Unlike last time we went up when we weren't ready and weren't prepared to spend really hoping we can get some decent business done

I suspect we couldn't have got a better offer though. Maybe could have risked waiting to see what other transfers shake out interest from other clubs, but then how much is the extra few mil worth with no time to reinvest? Plus probably what happened last season is Arsenal tried to turn his head and made a low ball offer to the club. Webber convinced him to stay to the end of the season which got us a promotion and probably 15m more cash. If that's the case we are in a much better position to reinvest in the squad as we have a bigger kitty and the lure of being in the Premier league.

Not sure about that. We are still poor compared to most clubs and everyone knows that. In the same way they're wasn't much competition for signing Emi I think this window could be a bit of a buyers market with most clubs looking to raise funds. Especially so at the lower end where we are operating.

Yep. Plus it's a depressed market with covid effects still being felt across football finances. Webber came up with the price tag, so he must feel at that level the cash is more wisely reinvested in the squad than tied up in one player (who might get injured or might fail to impress at the Premier league level again). Tbh it's difficult right now to believe Webber was right on that, but let's see who we sign first. Hopefully doing this early in the window works in our favour

The fact we are getting it done early hopefully means we have a chance to reinvest well. If this had been close of the window would be much worse news. Not that it isn't already terrible

Yes exactly. I think that's why the club won't stand in his way now, clearly Webber told him to risk another season with us and then the door is open. Just madness he is going to Villa. Any chance Arsenal can still come up with an offer?

Yes exactly this. If we made a big money (for Norwich) signing or two that would show our intent to improve our weak areas and would make a stronger case to Emi and others that sticking around with Norwich is a better idea than jumping ship to Villa for instance. We don't need to worry about blowing the warchest because if any of our stars still left we would have more funds coming in the door to spend on their direct replacements with the other gaps in the squad already filled.

The parachute payments are to offset the disparity between the premiership and the championship. Really the way to fix that is wage caps, perhaps premiership salaries capped at some multiple of the championship ones