Emi

[Terminally Yellow 2,492]

8 hours ago, unique said:

75% of the clubs in England would prefer to win the Championship Trophy than the two cup competitions.

It's just not true, mate. I'm sorry but you are deluding yourself trying to argue that staying at Norwich would be better for someone trying to win trophies than a move to Arsenal.

Even last season, Arsenal were in the semi final of the Europa League and based on second half form would be up there challenging. They won the FA cup the season before.

And there isn't a player in England that would turn down winning the FA Cup.

[horsefly 4,325]

1 hour ago, DraytonBoy said:

Kalvin Philips turned down a move to Villa just after the 2018/19 season on the advice of his gran and promptly signed a new five year contract.

Anyone know Buendia's gran's address or telephone number???

[Walcombe canary 69]

Really hope both Max and Emi stay or move abroad. Bayern and Athletico maybe. I'm afraid the extra 10 / 20 grand a week will see a player move. We have done well to keep them as long as we have, and will get all we can in payment. Celtic and Rangers guarantee European Football and win trophies, but their players rarely make the Prem. now. Obviously 1 or 2 exceptions. The players can go to the Championship for more Money

[Graham Paddons Beard 2,469]

A professional footballer would see Arsenal as a step up from Norwich. Even more so an Argentine Professional Footballer . 
I can’t really see that anyone could dispute it . 
Arsenal won’t ever win the EFL Championship trophy because they won’t play in the EFL . So that’s a nonsensical argument . 
Arsenal have a far higher chance of winning a trophy next year than Norwich . 
Over a 4 year contract, Arsenal will pay a higher salary than Norwich could afford to pay. 

This is why IF Arsenal make an acceptable bid for Emi he will go. 

[BroadstairsR 2,226]

At the end of the day every footballer would likely want millions in his bank account than trophies  on his mantlepiece.

I won a boy scout's egg and spoon race once and got a certificate. I would rather have been given a spoon, or even an egg for that matter.

Edited June 5, 2021 by BroadstairsR

[Graham Paddons Beard 2,469]

11 hours ago, king canary said:

Yaya Toure isn't a great example as he went on to play for them for another 3 or 4 seasons and did a decent job.

A quick Google shows Wilf Zaha and Jack Grealish both reportedly handed in transfer requests in the last couple of seasons yet both are still at their clubs doing excellent jobs.

Leeds turned down bids for Kalvin Phillips from Spurs.

Even bloody Ipswich kept Flynn Downes after he handed in a transfer request due to interest from Crystal Palace. 

This idea that once a player wants a move his club is powerless is just a narrative that doesn't actually hold up to much scrutiny.

 

Harry Kane will leave Spurs. Spurs don’t want him to but he  will. 
You can find all sorts of examples to prove that players want to leave , do leave . 
Dean Ashton anyone ? 

[Indy_Bones 442]

12 hours ago, hogesar said:

You've been bang on throughout this thread, Indy.

Don't go and ruin by suggesting we sign RvW or something similar though 😉

Lol Hoggy, not something you need to worry about, whatever my views about him during his time here, he's certainly not someone I'd even consider for a move back these days.

But I certainly appreciate your comments and support in this thread.

We all know it's a tough subject, and it boggles my mind that some feel the 'trophy' of winning the Champs is somehow better than winning FA cups, playing in Europe and being in the top 6 in the PL. Villa would absolutely be more of a sideways move IMHO, but the likes of Arsenal and Athletico are certainly jumps up from where we are and from a career prospective with the goal at playing at the top of the game, absolutely offer more than we can at this present time.

[king canary 7,703]

6 hours ago, hogesar said:

Thing is, for every 2 examples you find there will be 200 that suggest otherwise.

OK so I've given you three examples, by your logic you can now easily find me 300 showing the opposite. 

I'll wait.

[king canary 7,703]

29 minutes ago, Graham Paddons Beard said:

A professional footballer would see Arsenal as a step up from Norwich. Even more so an Argentine Professional Footballer . 
I can’t really see that anyone could dispute it . 
Arsenal won’t ever win the EFL Championship trophy because they won’t play in the EFL . So that’s a nonsensical argument . 
Arsenal have a far higher chance of winning a trophy next year than Norwich . 
Over a 4 year contract, Arsenal will pay a higher salary than Norwich could afford to pay. 

This is why IF Arsenal make an acceptable bid for Emi he will go. 

Yep, totally agree on this. Ask any Arsenal fan and they'll say the last few years have been the worst in ages yet their worst seasons involve European football and FA Cup wins, while pur best seasons involve winning the Championship. There is no comparison there.

[BigFish 1,988]

21 minutes ago, Indy_Bones said:

Villa would absolutely be more of a sideways move IMHO

This would be true if we could contemplate spending £40 million on a player and meeting such a player's contract demands.

We can't, and we can't anticipate when we could.

[Jim Smith 2,365]

The pertinent question though is why is £40m considered an acceptable fee for us at this particular point in time. It shouldn’t be. You could argue no fee is really enough. 

[king canary 7,703]

10 minutes ago, BigFish said:

This would be true if we could contemplate spending £40 million on a player and meeting such a player's contract demands.

We can't, and we can't anticipate when we could.

It's a slight step up but it's not much and I don't think it's hard to make an argument against it, unlike Arsenal.

[Hank shoots Skyler 2,094]

1 hour ago, horsefly said:

Anyone know Buendia's gran's address or telephone number???

**** that. Anyone good at doing make-up? I’ll tell him myself. 

[Hank shoots Skyler 2,094]

12 hours ago, king canary said:

Yaya Toure isn't a great example as he went on to play for them for another 3 or 4 seasons and did a decent job.

A quick Google shows Wilf Zaha and Jack Grealish both reportedly handed in transfer requests in the last couple of seasons yet both are still at their clubs doing excellent jobs.

Leeds turned down bids for Kalvin Phillips from Spurs.

Even bloody Ipswich kept Flynn Downes after he handed in a transfer request due to interest from Crystal Palace. 

This idea that once a player wants a move his club is powerless is just a narrative that doesn't actually hold up to much scrutiny.

 

Thing is though Palace and Villa have wage budgets which are easily closer to the top 6 clubs than they are to ours. Think Palace actually also have the 7th highest wage expenditure too don’t they? Villa likewise have spent a **** tonne the past couple of seasons. Would they have held on to them if their wage budgets were capped out at 40-50k like ours and not 100-120k?

So both Grealish and Zaha will be on wages similar to that of a top 6 club already. If we could offer Buendia anything close to what he would get at Arsenal right now then maybe he would stay? But I don’t think we can sadly, and if we try to break the bank to keep him then what will Cantwell, Aarons, Gibson, Giannoulis, or any new signing demand when they have a contract discussion?

Why dont we all do a GoFundMe for Buendia to stay. I’d chuck in £100. If everyone puts in the same then we could raise him nearly £3 million guys. What a fantastic cause that would be too.

Edited June 5, 2021 by Hank shoots Skyler

[Tetteys Jig 831]

Arsenal would be a clear step up, absolutely 💯% I guess the thing is if they were lowballing us with bids of £20m how much would it affect Emi? If it was Real Madrid or City or PSG offering to pay him £200k a week then I can see him kicking off and if he wasn't much of a pro he could down tools a bit and then we have an unfocused player on our books until Jan. Barca did it with Cesc and tried it with us for Aarons.

It's where Kane is guilty of being such a model pro, you just know he'd never force his way out of spurs in the same way other players have forced their moves so they know that if they don't sell him, they have the best striker in the league again next season.

That's why I'm pretty relaxed. We either get Emi firing on all cylinders trying to prove a point in the prem until at least Jan or we get around £35m to spend in possibly the most depressed market for years. There's talk of Matheus Pereira being available for £15m which is just crazy when you look at transfer fees the last fee years. My main concern would be our ability to attract that next level player to replace Emi and improve on other areas.

[NeymarSmith 133]

Loved reading all these guys. Great points.

So, i think we can all now universally accept that by way of our finance model, the way we wish to be perceived by other young talents and the fact (and it is just fact, arsenal are a bigger club and will pay more wages than us) that naturally EMI will wish to progress his career, is the sticking point the price?

£40million does sound on the lighter side to me personally and I'm guessing from the way this thread has gone, to most. We can argue that it's our highest fee ever, that he is yet to smash the PL (but clearly will hence why arsenal want him) and that due to covid the market is the way it is. But I consider that apparently twenty percent is due to Gefate, and as others have pointed out, who can we get near his level of effectiveness for what we would pay. Is the 30 odd million enough for us to really get the quality in needed for the squad as a whole to progress? 

Not bashing the board, they have done a marvellous job, but I do feel we get turned over on transfer fees and I worry that if we try to recruit on the cheap again (and in sense trying to get just 2 PL quality players in for 30m is on the cheap, albeit not for us) then the result is just going to be relegation. 

Adding to that point, I know it's the model and it's lush. But it's only lush because it worked this time. If we go down again and find ourselves back in the champ, pukki is older and slower, DF may be gone, SW gone, Todd and max surely gone and anyone with real ambition and ability would have to question if Norwich is a viable long term option. 

[hogesar 9,816]

2 hours ago, king canary said:

OK so I've given you three examples, by your logic you can now easily find me 300 showing the opposite. 

I'll wait.

I dont have that much spare time on my hands but my guess is if you take the top 5 European leagues and look how many transfers have happened where a bigger club has bought a player from a smaller club it wouldn't be massively difficult.

[Terminally Yellow 2,492]

2 hours ago, king canary said:

OK so I've given you three examples, by your logic you can now easily find me 300 showing the opposite. 

I'll wait.

Phillipe Coutinho, Leroy Sane and Eric Garcia.

Not that I disagree with what you're saying, I'm just providing examples as you asked.

[king canary 7,703]

1 minute ago, Terminally Yellow said:

Phillipe Coutinho, Leroy Sane and Eric Garcia.

Not that I disagree with what you're saying, I'm just providing examples as you asked.

You're 1% of the way there based on Hoegsars ratio 😉

As I say, I don't think players can't force moves, just it isn't as common/inevitable as some seem to think.

[Uncle Fred 526]

3 hours ago, horsefly said:

I take it this is meant to be a wind-up. Delia and Mike's personal wealth is estimated at around £23m, "lack of ambition" is a ridiculous claim to make about their stewardship of the club. Indeed, it is actually very disrespectful given the percentage of their wealth they have ploughed into the club to stave off administration. We could easily have been facing another local derby next season if it had not been for their devotion to the club (do feel free to compare their wealth to that of Marcus Evans). What you consider to be "ambition" appears to be nothing more than what the average economist would describe as "reckless gambling". We could of course leverage a £100m spending spree against all our cherished assets. Several clubs have tried that approach and didn't have to wait long to experience the financial destitution, lower league obscurity,  and the regret for such folly and impetuousness. Sheffield United spent £50m and sold no one last season, how very ambitious/stupid (delete as appropriate). 

The idea that the "ambition" of a club can be understood separately from its financial probity and security is utterly ridiculous. The true measure of City's ambition is that they were financially secure enough to hold on to the likes of Buendia, Aarons, Cantwell for an incredible title winning season directly after demotion. 

You may disagree with the current management's perception that we need to sell someone like Buendia in order to raise funds to bolster areas of the team that proved to be seriously lacking the last time we were in the PL. What this most definitely is not, however, is a lack of ambition.

Hi nepotism Tom 

[Kenny Foggo 1,122]

On 04/06/2021 at 10:28, birchfest said:

No he didn’t. 
 

"If we do sell one, it's going to be a club record deal," Canaries sporting director Stuart Webber recently told BBC Sport.

"It's probably going to start with a number three in front of it and that will give us great opportunities to maybe make the whole better as well. We're really relaxed on that front."

[Mr Angry 1,574]

I don’t know why SW doesn’t list Emi, Max and Todd on EBay with a Buy It Now price of what would be acceptable to us. That would put an end to the speculation 🤣

[Mason 47 1,416]

I think the pain of the issue at the moment is that yes, Arsenal is a step up from us. But it's a step up into that impotent grey zone in the Premier League that Arsenal inhabit, aiming for 6th. They haven't been a proper force since a while before Wenger left and have become a bit of a parody club with the rise of social media.

We naturally want to feel as though if Emi is going to leave, it should be to a real step up. At the moment all of the things Arsenal can offer (aside from the big one, money) that we can't are really trading on former reputation and glories- I don't want to see such a good player stuck at such a middling 'big' club.

[horsefly 4,325]

1 hour ago, Uncle Fred said:

Hi nepotism Tom 

Just don't know how you manage to come up with such sparklingly witty retorts. Do you write for Steven Fry by any chance?

Edited June 5, 2021 by horsefly

[horsefly 4,325]

3 hours ago, Jim Smith said:

The pertinent question though is why is £40m considered an acceptable fee for us at this particular point in time. It shouldn’t be. You could argue no fee is really enough. 

We could, of course, have said the same thing about Maddison's sale. But the only truly relevant points are that the fee we got for him enabled us to save the club from financial ruin, and purchase far cheaper players who have strengthened the squad to such an extent that we have now achieved two promotions to the PL as champions. No one on this thread wants to see Buendia leave, however, it is clearly Webber's judgement that such a sale the only option he has for maximising the chances of retaining PL status. Whether that turns out to be a wise judgement only time will tell, but we should remember that Buendia's presence wasn't enough for us to retain PL status last time, and lack of strength elsewhere cost us dearly.

Until that beneficent billionaire turns up the self-financing model is the only viable option for a club like City.

[Icecream Snow 762]

2 hours ago, NeymarSmith said:

Loved reading all these guys. Great points.

£40million does sound on the lighter side to me personally and I'm guessing from the way this thread has gone, to most. We can argue that it's our highest fee ever, that he is yet to smash the PL (but clearly will hence why arsenal want him) and that due to covid the market is the way it is. But I consider that apparently twenty percent is due to Gefate, and as others have pointed out, who can we get near his level of effectiveness for what we would pay. Is the 30 odd million enough for us to really get the quality in needed for the squad as a whole to progress?

No, the clause existed in the original deal, but Norwich bought it out.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/57359202

[Jim Smith 2,365]

3 hours ago, NeymarSmith said:

Loved reading all these guys. Great points.

So, i think we can all now universally accept that by way of our finance model, the way we wish to be perceived by other young talents and the fact (and it is just fact, arsenal are a bigger club and will pay more wages than us) that naturally EMI will wish to progress his career, is the sticking point the price?

£40million does sound on the lighter side to me personally and I'm guessing from the way this thread has gone, to most. We can argue that it's our highest fee ever, that he is yet to smash the PL (but clearly will hence why arsenal want him) and that due to covid the market is the way it is. But I consider that apparently twenty percent is due to Gefate, and as others have pointed out, who can we get near his level of effectiveness for what we would pay. Is the 30 odd million enough for us to really get the quality in needed for the squad as a whole to progress? 

Not bashing the board, they have done a marvellous job, but I do feel we get turned over on transfer fees and I worry that if we try to recruit on the cheap again (and in sense trying to get just 2 PL quality players in for 30m is on the cheap, albeit not for us) then the result is just going to be relegation. 

Adding to that point, I know it's the model and it's lush. But it's only lush because it worked this time. If we go down again and find ourselves back in the champ, pukki is older and slower, DF may be gone, SW gone, Todd and max surely gone and anyone with real ambition and ability would have to question if Norwich is a viable long term option. 

It’s not lush. It will just lead to profound disappointment any time we look to be on the verge of doing something because clubs, agents and players know they can pick off any of our players any time they want if they pay a sum that’s not even stupid money. 

[Ken Hairy 3,799]

5 hours ago, Graham Paddons Beard said:

A professional footballer would see Arsenal as a step up from Norwich. Even more so an Argentine Professional Footballer . 
I can’t really see that anyone could dispute it . 
Arsenal won’t ever win the EFL Championship trophy because they won’t play in the EFL . So that’s a nonsensical argument . 
Arsenal have a far higher chance of winning a trophy next year than Norwich . 
Over a 4 year contract, Arsenal will pay a higher salary than Norwich could afford to pay. 

This is why IF Arsenal make an acceptable bid for Emi he will go. 

No one is arguing Arsenal aren't bigger than us, what is being said is Emi should only be leaving us for clubs in Europe. I don't see Arsenal competing for top 4 in the next couple of seasons, and not under Arteta. 

If he's only interested in ££££ then of course he go, if he's ambitious to win big trophies, which I think he is, he'll wait for better clubs to come knocking, which they will even if its not until next summer. 

[TheGunnShow 6,092]

We sold £40million of talent in Godfrey and Lewis and replaced them with two better defenders in Gibson and Giannoulis. Who's to say we can't do a proper job of our midfield with £40 million from Buendia, especially as there's a Skipp-sized hole in there already?

[Jim Smith 2,365]

1 hour ago, horsefly said:

We could, of course, have said the same thing about Maddison's sale. But the only truly relevant points are that the fee we got for him enabled us to save the club from financial ruin, and purchase far cheaper players who have strengthened the squad to such an extent that we have now achieved two promotions to the PL as champions. No one on this thread wants to see Buendia leave, however, it is clearly Webber's judgement that such a sale the only option he has for maximising the chances of retaining PL status. Whether that turns out to be a wise judgement only time will tell, but we should remember that Buendia's presence wasn't enough for us to retain PL status last time, and lack of strength elsewhere cost us dearly.

Until that beneficent billionaire turns up the self-financing model is the only viable option for a club like City.

Any beneficent billionaire would get turned away. They ain’t interested.