Buendia to Arsenal for reported £40m

[cambridgeshire canary 6,674]

2 minutes ago, Haus said:

Theres a very different attitude here to on other teams forums (Brentford being the one I looked at this morning)

They seem confident they are keeping everyone and will have 40-50 million to spend on improvements.

 

Our finances arent in a bad place, we should keep Buendia at all costs if we can (assuming a Champions League team doesnt come in for him)

Well, Brentfords owners do have quite a bit of money.

 

The fact they only just bought a brand new stadium for themselves and yet still have no problem splashing tens of millions on single players should tell you all you need to know about them

[Alex Moss 2,165]

14 hours ago, Branston Pickle said:

Add the fact that it is all just a rehash of previously reported comments and it really is a ‘not a lot to see here’ scenario.

I don’t recall Webber publicly admitting a ballpark figure before, so I’d say it’s actually quite significant.

And as for those saying that figure alludes to Max and not Emi - Webber doesn’t say that at all. As far as I can see he’s talking in general about any of our young talent - and that includes Buendia.

[TheGunnShow 5,925]

14 hours ago, yellowrider120 said:

But Jamal was still sold was he not?  Yes we stood firm against the Scousers and fair play to Webber for that but a few million more and he was out of the door. Remember the Chris Sutton '£5M' price tag? Once Blackburn called our bluff he was gone.

Not really sure what Chris Sutton has to do with the current regime under Webber. Not to mention we got several million more for Lewis than Liverpool's low bid - and then we probably found a more complete player to replace him for less money in Giannoulis.

[Alex Moss 2,165]

2 hours ago, king canary said:

I can see the argument for selling Aarons- I think if someone wants to pay £30m+ for him, we can likely get a solid Premier League level fullback for £10-15m giving us some more spending power. However replacing Buendia would be much more expensive and much more challenging.

 

Totally agree, KC.

If we sold Max then I actually think we’d benefit from the 30 or so million.

We sell Emi and we would do incredibly well to replace not only an attacker that we know can open up the likes of Man City, but is a fantastic defender too - the proverbial 12th man of you like.

He’s on a long contract. He will go up in value and would almost certainly be the difference in us staying up or not, perhaps even doing a bit better than that if we get a bit of luck on the injury front this time around. I think we’d be utterly mad to sell Emi this summer.

[Branston Pickle 3,632]

12 minutes ago, Alex Moss said:

I don’t recall Webber publicly admitting a ballpark figure before, so I’d say it’s actually quite significant.

And as for those saying that figure alludes to Max and not Emi - Webber doesn’t say that at all. As far as I can see he’s talking in general about any of our young talent - and that includes Buendia.

If you read what the pinkun journo said from yesterday’s update he said it was nothing new, just a rehash and not new news.
 

31/05/2021, 13:07:52

Connor Southwell

Yes. It's not news to us. Goes back to what we reported when we went down to Colney, they will be open to offers for their stars but it will take a lot of money to prize them away. Even in a market deflated by Covid, there is a premium and clubs have to cough up that cash. If City de-value one, then all three will leave on the cheap. Part of this is political, of course. Norwich will want an auction to drive that fee up. It's all a game of poker. But those quotes aren't new. No. 

Paul ncfc: Is the BBC Webber interview just a rehash of what was said weeks ago?

 

Edited June 1, 2021 by Branston Pickle

[Terminally Yellow 2,448]

12 minutes ago, Haus said:

Theres a very different attitude here to on other teams forums (Brentford being the one I looked at this morning)

They seem confident they are keeping everyone and will have 40-50 million to spend on improvements.

Our finances arent in a bad place, we should keep Buendia at all costs if we can (assuming a Champions League team doesnt come in for him)

Brentford are owned by Matthew Benham, and since 2017 he's invested well over £100m. They may have been a club who have made money from selling players, but they are still backed by someone with the capability of giving Thomas Frank more money up front than we have.

The fact of the matter is Emi has been making noises about leaving for some time. If he wants to go and we get the right offer, I think it's right he should be sold. 

[king canary 7,577]

Just now, Alex Moss said:

Totally agree, KC.

If we sold Max then I actually think we’d benefit from the 30 or so million.

We sell Emi and we would do incredibly well to replace not only an attacker that we know can open up the likes of Man City, but is a fantastic defender too - the proverbial 12th man of you like.

He’s on a long contract. He will go up in value and would almost certainly be the difference in us staying up or not, perhaps even doing a bit better than that if we get a bit of luck on the injury front this time around. I think we’d be utterly mad to sell Emi this summer.

If he forces it fine- and I can see him doing it for Arsenal, despite a few on here underestimating the lure of playing for them. What I can't the point of though is just accepting an offer if it begins with a '3' (even if its £39,999,999) to a club like Aston Villa. Going into this season, Villa are the type of team we'd be targeting to take points off and who could potentially be in a relegation scrap with us. Stregthening them in exchange for money we just don't really need right now makes no sense.

[Jim Smith 2,314]

36 minutes ago, cambridgeshire canary said:

Well, Brentfords owners do have quite a bit of money.

 

The fact they only just bought a brand new stadium for themselves and yet still have no problem splashing tens of millions on single players should tell you all you need to know about them

Unfortunately we have a support that is too accepting of some of the propaganda that comes out of the club. We have owners who are on record as saying they block any possibility of new ownership which means we have to be "self funding" (which really means fan funded). At the same time we have Webber and co continually telling us that because we are self funding we will always have to sell players if the offer is right and can't afford to take any sort of punt to try and retain our premier league position because we don;t have rich owners to underwrite any debts.

And yet anyone who at any point dares to question whether perhaps the owners should be seeking/considering extra investment or looking to move the club on to someone who can afford to give us a chance of competing (or even just speculate a bit to accumulate) gets immediately shot down in flames by many. Anyone who ventures to suggest we should spend a bit (not ridiculous amounts) because a bit of debt can be manageable and/or players don;t suddenly become worthless on relegation and can be sold gets Naismith and RVW (just two bad signings really) thrown back at them. There is basically a stance of "if you question the club" then you can;t be a fan and "you should be careful what you wish for." Rather than wanting to win things (like heaven forbid a cup or something) some of our fans seem to take more pride in the fact we are "self-funding."

I completely accept that we all have different views on this. Who knows who is right and who is wrong. I also generally accept the principle that the club should (over the medium term) be operating sustainably regardless of who owns us. If we just show a bit more genuine intent this summer (who knows we still might) then great. However, what I find depressing is that in a summer where we have just been promoted and have a talented team that is not far off competing if we can build on it we are once again spending the first part of the summer discussing which players we might lose and rather than pouring cold water on that notion the club seems to almost be encouraging it. That should surely ring some alarm bells? We can;t keep going down and bouncing back as we did this year. Sooner or later it won;t happen. This may be our last opportunity to really grow the club and leave the sc*m behind for a long time. Brentford are a tiny club with a fraction of the support of ours and yet they now have aground thats not that much smaller and I have no doubt we will soon be told that we can;t compete with them financially because they have a wealthier owner.

Edited June 1, 2021 by Jim Smith

[Terminally Yellow 2,448]

12 minutes ago, Alex Moss said:

I don’t recall Webber publicly admitting a ballpark figure before, so I’d say it’s actually quite significant.

And as for those saying that figure alludes to Max and not Emi - Webber doesn’t say that at all. As far as I can see he’s talking in general about any of our young talent - and that includes Buendia.

Honestly, you are reading far too much into such a generalised comment. All that should be taken from that quote is if he is sold, it will be for a price that far exceeds any we've received for a player previously.

[FatCanary 249]

I really enjoy people reading into pretty much anything said in the media in public interview of football execs.

You don't really think Webber's peers at other clubs listen to his interviews for clues as to how much to bid for our players do you....?

 

.....do you?

 

Oh god @Alex Moss i'm sorry, i've just realised this is in response to you again....our opinions really don't get on, do they....

Edited June 1, 2021 by FatCanary
apology

[TheGunnShow 5,925]

1 minute ago, Jim Smith said:

Unfortunately we have a support that is too accepting of some of the propaganda that comes out of the club. We have owners who are on record as saying they block any possibility of new ownership which means we have to be "self funding" (which really means fan funded). At the same time we have Webber and co continually telling us that because we are self funding we will always have to sell players if the offer is right and can't afford to take any sort of punt to try and retain our premier league position because we don;t have rich owners to underwrite any debts.

And yet anyone who at any point dares to question whether perhaps the owners should be seeking/considering extra investment or looking to move the club on to someone who can afford to give us a chance of competing (or even just speculate a bit to accumulate) gets immediately shot down in flames by many. Anyone who ventures to suggest we should spend a bit (not ridiculous amounts) because a bit of debt can be manageable and/or players don;t suddenly become worthless on relegation and can be sold gets Naismith and RVW (just two bad signings really) thrown back at them. There is an almost North Korea like stance of "if you question the club" then you can;t be a fan and "you should be careful what you wish for." Rather than wanting to win things (like heaven forbid a cup or something) some of our fans seem to take more pride in the fact we are "self-funding."

I completely accept that we all have different views on this. Who knows who is right and who is wrong. I also generally accept the principle that the club should (over the medium term) be operating sustainably regardless of who owns us. If we just show a bit more genuine intent this summer (who knows we still might) then great. However, what I find depressing is that in a summer where we have just been promoted and have a talented team that is not far off competing if we can build on it we are once again spending the first part of the summer discussing which players we might lose and rather than pouring cold water on that notion the club seems to almost be encouraging it. That should surely ring some alarm bells? We can;t keep going down and bouncing back as we did this year. Sooner or later it won;t happen. This may be our last opportunity to really grow the club and leave the sc*m behind for a long time. Brentford are a tiny club with a fraction of the support of ours and yet they now have aground thats not that much smaller and I have no doubt we will soon be told that we can;t compete with them financially because they have a wealthier owner.

Brentford's new ground has a capacity of 17,250. It's hardly "not much smaller" than Carrow Road - it's around two-thirds of the size. Furthermore, as the likes of Bolton, Bury, Portsmouth inter alia show, what happens when the wealthy owner has had enough?

We've already come very close to administration ourselves on at least two occasions over the last twenty years. The first one of those resulted in our slip-sliding into League One for the first time in decades until we got Lambert. The second one resulted in selling Maddison and Murphy. Considering that, I'd say there's definitely a lot of pride to be had in following a model which means going into financial difficulties is far harder to do.

In fact, you could argue we won this Championship at a relative canter because we financially had our house in order despite the economic effects of Covid. Whilst other teams didn't have enough depth, we just about held out during our injury crisis in the early stages of the season and came on strong in the second half, motoring away to finish like we did.

[Terminally Yellow 2,448]

5 minutes ago, Jim Smith said:

Unfortunately we have a support that is too accepting of some of the propaganda that comes out of the club. We have owners who are on record as saying they block any possibility of new ownership which means we have to be "self funding" (which really means fan funded). At the same time we have Webber and co continually telling us that because we are self funding we will always have to sell players if the offer is right and can't afford to take any sort of punt to try and retain our premier league position because we don;t have rich owners to underwrite any debts.

And yet anyone who at any point dares to question whether perhaps the owners should be seeking/considering extra investment or looking to move the club on to someone who can afford to give us a chance of competing (or even just speculate a bit to accumulate) gets immediately shot down in flames by many. Anyone who ventures to suggest we should spend a bit (not ridiculous amounts) because a bit of debt can be manageable and/or players don;t suddenly become worthless on relegation and can be sold gets Naismith and RVW (just two bad signings really) thrown back at them. There is an almost North Korea like stance of "if you question the club" then you can;t be a fan and "you should be careful what you wish for." Rather than wanting to win things (like heaven forbid a cup or something) some of our fans seem to take more pride in the fact we are "self-funding."

I completely accept that we all have different views on this. Who knows who is right and who is wrong. I also generally accept the principle that the club should (over the medium term) be operating sustainably regardless of who owns us. If we just show a bit more genuine intent this summer (who knows we still might) then great. However, what I find depressing is that in a summer where we have just been promoted and have a talented team that is not far off competing if we can build on it we are once again spending the first part of the summer discussing which players we might lose and rather than pouring cold water on that notion the club seems to almost be encouraging it. That should surely ring some alarm bells? We can;t keep going down and bouncing back as we did this year. Sooner or later it won;t happen. This may be our last opportunity to really grow the club and leave the sc*m behind for a long time. Brentford are a tiny club with a fraction of the support of ours and yet they now have aground thats not that much smaller and I have no doubt we will soon be told that we can;t compete with them financially because they have a wealthier owner.

You make some valid and very good points but then completely over blow it by comparing Norwich City FC to North Korea's authoritarian regime. 

I mean, come on!

Quite simply, there are a lot of positives to the way this club is run and a lot of negatives. One of those negatives is that we are always going to be a club without financial resources and susceptible to significant bids for our players. 

Let's not turn this thread into yet another debate on the ownership, shall we? Or at least start a new topic if we want to go down this route.

[FatCanary 249]

Just now, Terminally Yellow said:

You make some valid and very good points but then completely over blow it by comparing Norwich City FC to North Korea's authoritarian regime. 

I mean, come on!

Quite simply, there are a lot of positives to the way this club is run and a lot of negatives. One of those negatives is that we are always going to be a club without financial resources and susceptible to significant bids for our players. 

Let's not turn this thread into yet another debate on the ownership, shall we? Or at least start a new topic if we want to go down this route.

Yeah, that North Korea stuff is not only mad, it's mildly offensive.

[Terminally Yellow 2,448]

3 minutes ago, FatCanary said:

I really enjoy people reading into pretty much anything said in the media in public interview of football execs.

You don't really think Webber's peers at other clubs listen to his interviews for clues as to how much to bid for our players do you....?

 

.....do you?

 

Oh god @Alex Moss i'm sorry, i've just realised this is in response to you again....our opinions really don't get on, do they....

I do like you. 

[FatCanary 249]

I just judge Webber on his actions rather than words.

Often they seem to match. Sometimes they don't.

Either way whatever he ends up doing I usually agree with.

Not quite the same thing as blindly permitting mass genocide, but....y'know

 

is it possible to take the p1ss out of someone's opinion without them taking it personally on this board?

I feel like sometimes the lines get blurred and people think I'm having a go at them, when in reality we are all Norwich fans (except pete who is a Binner) and I love you all.

Edited June 1, 2021 by FatCanary

[Jim Smith 2,314]

It was a reference to the defensive attitude to criticism/questioning of certain things and the way they like to completely control the media narrative - which they do.

However I take the point and have edited the comment in question!

 

[hogesar 9,615]

1 hour ago, Jim Smith said:

 

I completely accept that we all have different views on this. Who knows who is right and who is wrong. I also generally accept the principle that the club should (over the medium term) be operating sustainably regardless of who owns us. If we just show a bit more genuine intent this summer (who knows we still might) then great. However, what I find depressing is that in a summer where we have just been promoted and have a talented team that is not far off competing if we can build on it we are once again spending the first part of the summer discussing which players we might lose and rather than pouring cold water on that notion the club seems to almost be encouraging it. That should surely ring some alarm bells? We can;t keep going down and bouncing back as we did this year. Sooner or later it won;t happen. This may be our last opportunity to really grow the club and leave the sc*m behind for a long time. Brentford are a tiny club with a fraction of the support of ours and yet they now have aground thats not that much smaller and I have no doubt we will soon be told that we can;t compete with them financially because they have a wealthier owner.

To be fair, the amount of times you've said we won't get promoted under our current ownership and we've gone and done just that, i'm fairly sure you'll eventually be right.

[PurpleCanary 5,554]

1 hour ago, Jim Smith said:

 We have owners who are on record as saying they block any possibility of new ownership.

No.

[FatCanary 249]

1 hour ago, Jim Smith said:

It was a reference to the defensive attitude to criticism/questioning of certain things and the way they like to completely control the media narrative - which they do.

However I take the point and have edited the comment in question!

 

Fair play Jim, no offence meant personally.

[Jim Smith 2,314]

53 minutes ago, PurpleCanary said:

No.

“We will never sell, we don’t even listen to offers”

[Jim Smith 2,314]

1 hour ago, hogesar said:

To be fair, the amount of times you've said we won't get promoted under our current ownership and we've gone and done just that, i'm fairly sure you'll eventually be right.

Don’t think I’ve ever said that. I’ve certainly said we will have to get everything right to compete and fortunately under Farke and Webber at champ level that has generally been the case. 

[PurpleCanary 5,554]

34 minutes ago, Jim Smith said:

“We will never sell, we don’t even listen to offers”

Long since retracted, and it made publicly clear they would be open to investment that might result in new ownership.

[FatCanary 249]

I thought it was common knowledge and accepted and appreciated that unless you're Big Vince our owners have the best interests of the club at heart and would sell to the right buyer.

Trouble is until we became all new age and got an elite training ground I don't think the interest would have been there, but the stronger our reputation grows as a finishing school for football's elite the more chance a erm, stinking rich Chinese owner* may take a punt on us as our relevance to the wider football world incrementally increases.

But that is unlikely, and I'm fine with that.

 

* one who Delia actually approves of, anyway 

[Icecream Snow 761]

I've posted this before, but this always comes to mind when people talk about club funding

 

[Mr.Carrow 376]

I think it comes down to weighing up the pride inherent in the "do different" way we've achieved what we have in recent years, against the frustration at the limitations of the model. I'm personally much more focused on the former and I question many of the assumptions behind the doom and gloom often connected to the latter. We've shown time and again that losing players (whilst it feels terrible in the moment) isn't a disaster and can even result in an overall stronger position. I see no reason to think that the next year will be any different.

Edited June 1, 2021 by Mr.Carrow

[Jim Smith 2,314]

56 minutes ago, PurpleCanary said:

Long since retracted, and it made publicly clear they would be open to investment that might result in new ownership.

Not exactly retracted. MWJ muttered something about open to “investment” when put on the spot but it’s always carefully worded and if you ask me the Times article was a true reflection of how they feel. It’s going to Tom. 

[Jim Smith 2,314]

9 minutes ago, Mr.Carrow said:

I think it comes down to weighing up the pride inherent in the "do different" way we've achieved what we have in recent years, against the frustration at the limitations of the model. I'm personally much more focused on the former and I question many of the assumptions behind the doom and gloom often connected to the latter. We've shown time and again that losing players (whilst it feels terrible in the moment) isn't a disaster and can even result in an overall stronger position. I see no reason to think that the next year will be any different.

I’m not actually completely opposed to the “model”. I suppose what I would like is the model with benefits to enable us to hold onto key players for an extra season or two when it really matters or push the boat out occasionally for a key signing or two. 

[Ollz113 0]

Emi Martinez on the tap up for the Villa?

[hogesar 9,615]

1 hour ago, Icecream Snow said:

I've posted this before, but this always comes to mind when people talk about club funding

 

Superb 😂🙂

[PurpleCanary 5,554]

31 minutes ago, Jim Smith said:

Not exactly retracted. MWJ muttered something about open to “investment” when put on the spot but it’s always carefully worded and if you ask me the Times article was a true reflection of how they feel. It’s going to Tom. 

No, Jim, I won't ask you, although I might be interested in how you found living in North Korea...

Delia from 2019:

'I think we have slightly shifted our stance over the years but underlining it all is that whatever happens has got to be in the best interests of the football club, not money, not us.

'And how you define what is in the best interests of the football club is probably the next question now. I think we have seen so many times clubs that have thrown money at it and I mean thrown, hundreds of millions, and they've done absolutely **** all, frankly, or gone backwards.

'You've really got to be aware of that and do your best. You can't predict how (it would go) with any particular sheikh and the camels coming down Carrow Road and all that. We should say that Sheikh Mansour has done a decent job at Manchester City to be honest, but there are plenty of other sheikhs who haven't, or investors from America or Dubai, Hong Kong.

'We love our football club too much to stand in the way, if somebody came along who wanted to buy our football club – who would make it better – we just want to assure our fans that we care for the football club too deeply. We don't see anything in it for ourselves, we just want the football club to be successful.

'So if we find the right person. I gave an interview once and what we said was we were bored because we had seen some real stinkers who didn't want to put any money in.

'On the succession, I don't know, whatever is best for the football club. It's on the radar.'

That is not having been put on the spot or grudgingly muttered.