Villa no longer interested in Cantwell*

[cambridgeshire canary 6,833]

*I am not psychic. I am not Mystic Meg. I cannot confirm with 100% accuracy that Cantwell is not joining Villa or any other club

Edited July 31, 2021 by cambridgeshire canary

[priceyrice 124]

What a signing this is for them. I think they will get over the loss of grealish fairly quickly with their summer business. 

[CDMullins 446]

That's an incredible signing.

 

If they can keep Grealish then they could be some side.

[AJ 1,232]

Cantwell would be a prospect not an immediate replacement for Grealish

[Diane 500]

[cambridgeshire canary 6,833]

7 minutes ago, Diane said:

[Hucks6 169]

If true I thought you keep you best players.I hope Webber has got some good strings to his bow, otherwise we will be a yo- yo club

[Diane 500]

https://www.pinkun.com/sport/norwich-city/ncfc-aston-villa-interest-in-cantwell-grealish-moves-8194342

[duke63 545]

Todd is more likely to go to Leicester if they sell Maddison to Arsenal. 
 

I believe the sticking point with his Arsenal move is that Leicester will have to pay us 15% of any transfer fee. 

[Jim Smith 2,345]

He just should not be for sale. I cannot believe the number of our fans who are apparently happy for us to sell Buendia and Cantwell in this window. It’s staggering. No wonder the club think they can get away with it such is the pathetic acceptance of our fan base.

[TeemuVanBasten 3,327]

5 minutes ago, Jim Smith said:

He just should not be for sale. I cannot believe the number of our fans who are apparently happy for us to sell Buendia and Cantwell in this window. It’s staggering. No wonder the club think they can get away with it such is the pathetic acceptance of our fan base.

Its his contract length Jim.

It expires at the end of this year. 

It is said that we have a further one year option, but who knows what conditions are attached to that? 

So its more an acceptance by the fans that he either commits to a new deal or is sold whilst he can achieve a good price. 

We can safely assume that the club have put offers in front of him, but for whatever reason he hasn't signed, probably because he just wants out (he admitted that last summer he lost focus as he was angry about us changing our mind about accepting an offer, that's why we didn't see him at the start of the season).

Most fans would rather he signed a longer term deal, but if he doesn't then we can expect him to be sold while he can achieve a good fee.

[Bovril 220]

Villa won't get a like-for-like replacement for Grealish, but rather buy two or three players to replace his role in various manners. The same way we will likely do with Buendia. 

[Petriix 2,853]

36 minutes ago, Jim Smith said:

He just should not be for sale. I cannot believe the number of our fans who are apparently happy for us to sell Buendia and Cantwell in this window. It’s staggering. No wonder the club think they can get away with it such is the pathetic acceptance of our fan base.

What's 'pathetic' is the weird notion that we should keep hold of every player no matter what price we're offered. The Buendia money was astronomical as would any acceptable bid for Cantwell be.

I like Todd, but I wouldn't buy him for £35m. It would be fantastic business to get that kind of money for him. And if we don't move players like him on, there won't be enough opportunities to bring the next young players through into the first team.

[Capt. Pants 4,297]

1 hour ago, Jim Smith said:

He just should not be for sale. I cannot believe the number of our fans who are apparently happy for us to sell Buendia and Cantwell in this window. It’s staggering. No wonder the club think they can get away with it such is the pathetic acceptance of our fan base.

As mentioned it's mainly the contract situation which forces our hand. That said there seems to be an increasing number on here who are more concerned with NCFC's bank balance and continuing 'the project' than they are with what they see on the pitch.

With or without Norwich City I suspect that by the end of this transfer window Todd will be a very highly paid young man.

[Ken Hairy 3,782]

1 hour ago, Jim Smith said:

He just should not be for sale. I cannot believe the number of our fans who are apparently happy for us to sell Buendia and Cantwell in this window. It’s staggering. No wonder the club think they can get away with it such is the pathetic acceptance of our fan base.

I love Cantwell, but £38 million and I'll drive him there myself, he's simply not worth anywhere near that, and the overall squad can be massively improved. 

Edited July 31, 2021 by Ken Hairy

[horsefly 4,318]

47 minutes ago, Jim Smith said:

He just should not be for sale. I cannot believe the number of our fans who are apparently happy for us to sell Buendia and Cantwell in this window. It’s staggering. No wonder the club think they can get away with it such is the pathetic acceptance of our fan base.

So much naivity in every word of this. There is no player in any club that is "not for sale", every player has his price (as the sales of Suarez, Ronaldo, Bale, et al have shown). Even Villa fans are about to find out the truth of this basic fact. 

It's simply false and disrespectful of you to claim that any fan was "happy" for us to sell Buendia (and potentially Cantwell). Everyone I've read on here has said they would have loved Buendia to stay, but that given he had made it very clear he wanted to leave (Farke's own words) getting £38m for him was a damn fine deal that has created an opportunity to invest in players to improve our quality in depth.

Frankly your claim, "No wonder the club think they can get away with it such is the pathetic acceptance of our fan base", is both insulting to the club and to the fans. What evidence do you have that the relationship between the club and fan base is founded on a cynical exploitation of fan naivety? Every commentator on football that I've ever read on the matter cites NCFC as a paradigm example of how a club should relate to its fans, yet strangely you and a few others on here see it as fundamentally toxic. The picture you paint is of a board that spends its meetings discussing ways in which it can rip off the fans irrespective of the damage it does to the club's chances of success. I suggest you read through your words again to see how ridiculous they sound. 

I can understand a fan being frustrated that we don't have anything close to the sort of money to gamble on signings that much bigger clubs are able to do. What I can't understand is a fan who wants to twist that frustration into a conspiratorial rant besmirching the club and its fans without the slightest evidence to back up claims about the malicious intent imputed towards the club's owners and board.

[Alex Moss 2,165]

1 hour ago, horsefly said:

So much naivity in every word of this. There is no player in any club that is "not for sale", every player has his price (as the sales of Suarez, Ronaldo, Bale, et al have shown). Even Villa fans are about to find out the truth of this basic fact. 

It's simply false and disrespectful of you to claim that any fan was "happy" for us to sell Buendia (and potentially Cantwell). Everyone I've read on here has said they would have loved Buendia to stay, but that given he had made it very clear he wanted to leave (Farke's own words) getting £38m for him was a damn fine deal that has created an opportunity to invest in players to improve our quality in depth.

Frankly your claim, "No wonder the club think they can get away with it such is the pathetic acceptance of our fan base", is both insulting to the club and to the fans. What evidence do you have that the relationship between the club and fan base is founded on a cynical exploitation of fan naivety? Every commentator on football that I've ever read on the matter cites NCFC as a paradigm example of how a club should relate to its fans, yet strangely you and a few others on here see it as fundamentally toxic. The picture you paint is of a board that spends its meetings discussing ways in which it can rip off the fans irrespective of the damage it does to the club's chances of success. I suggest you read through your words again to see how ridiculous they sound. 

I can understand a fan being frustrated that we don't have anything close to the sort of money to gamble on signings that much bigger clubs are able to do. What I can't understand is a fan who wants to twist that frustration into a conspiratorial rant besmirching the club and its fans without the slightest evidence to back up claims about the malicious intent imputed towards the club's owners and board.

Yep, that line about everyone happy to sell Todd is just utter crap. There are only one or two posters that I can think of that would be happy to sell Todd - but painting up the realism that the vast majority RELUCTANTLY  accept the need to sell him now if he’s not going to sign a new contract, is clearly not even remotely close to everyone being ‘happy’ that we sell him on. A very silly statement. 

[spencer 1970 207]

How about if Villa buy Ward-Prowse as well? I know he's not often in the same position or same type player as Grealish, but neither is Emi, Bailey or our Todd?  Remember they still have El Ghazi, Traoré, Trézéguet, and McGinn in those "AM 3" positions so can't play them all/keep them all happy.

Edited July 31, 2021 by spencer 1970
schpelingz

[Hank shoots Skyler 2,094]

Whilst I totally appreciate the contract situation is the kicker on this topic, I would still be really reluctant to see Cantwell leave. 

The 'think of all the good players we could buy with £35 million' argument would be much better placed at the start of the window, not when there is two weeks till the first game of the season, not when we have barely even managed to utilise the funds from Buendia, not when we are struggling to land targets and already moving on to our plan-C and plan-D targets. How much deeper down our list would we have to go if we sold Cantwell now?

Staying up this season is worth a hell of a lot more to us than £35 million. Selling Cantwell this late on in the window when our squad is already looking at best - on par with last year - would be a disaster (in truth with the loss of easily our two best players in Buendia and Skipp I would say we're in a worse position). 

So is good money still good money if it puts us in an extremely desperate position? Doesn't there come a point where we have to draw the line and say no more? 

Or would you guys also be happy if we went and sold Aarons for £35 million now, Pukki for £15 million, Krul for £6 million etc etc? Never mind the fact we only have half a team look at all this shiny cash!!! 

The need for getting incoming players is already desperate, and that's WITH Cantwell, god knows how difficult we'd make it for ourselves if we lost him too.  

So given the current place the squad is at and our transfer struggles, I would rather we kept him and then sold him for say £15 million at the end of the season. 

Edited July 31, 2021 by Hank shoots Skyler

[Hank shoots Skyler 2,094]

2 hours ago, horsefly said:

So much naivity in every word of this. There is no player in any club that is "not for sale", every player has his price (as the sales of Suarez, Ronaldo, Bale, et al have shown). Even Villa fans are about to find out the truth of this basic fact. 

I think we all accept that much bigger clubs than us can also struggle to keep hold of their star players, but where we are definitely very unique is the way we have conducted ourselves to make those transfers happen. 

Look how Watford's Sporting Director spoke about the possibility of losing Sarr, shared by King on here the other day and pasted below.  

Its absolute night and day to Webber's comments at the start of the window. 

And no, it doesn't mean they definitely won't sell Sarr or any other of their top players, but potential buying clubs know they'd have to come in with a ridiculous fee to get Watford to talk. 

How do you think Webber's comments would've looked to buying clubs? 

Again as I said on the other thread, I'm not saying any of the above is particularly bad, I just don't agree with your comparisons to other transfers to make it seem like a completely normal way of doing business, it really isn't! 

Yes other clubs sometimes sell players against their will, but very rarely do we see it being done the way we have in this window. 

 

''

Watford have made their stance on Sarr very clear since their promotion, with both sporting director Cristiano Giaretta and CEO and chairman Scott Duxbury saying he would be part of the squad this season.

In May Giaretta told the Observer:"We want to keep the best players that we have in the squad. Sarr, Joao Pedro and the best players, or the players that we consider important for this team, we want to keep them. We are not in the market for selling our best players, we're just in the market for understanding how we can strengthen the team by signing good players, and especially signing players who we think can have an important chance at an important club.

''

Edited July 31, 2021 by Hank shoots Skyler

[Alex Moss 2,165]

21 minutes ago, Hank shoots Skyler said:

Whilst I totally appreciate the contract situation is the kicker on this topic, I would still be really reluctant to see Cantwell leave. 

The 'think of all the good players we could buy with £35 million' argument would be much better placed at the start of the window, not when there is two weeks till the first game of the season, not when we have barely even managed to utilise the funds from Buendia, not when we are struggling to land targets and already moving on to our plan-C and plan-D targets. How much deeper down our list would we have to go if we sold Cantwell now?

Staying up this season is worth a hell of a lot more to us than £35 million. Selling Cantwell this late on in the window when our squad is already looking at best - on par with last year (in truth with the loss of easily our two best players in Buendia and Skipp I would say we're in a worse position). 

So is good money still good money if it puts us in an extremely desperate position? Doesn't there come a point where we have to draw the line and say no more? 

Or would you guys also be happy if we went and sold Aarons for £35 million now, Pukki for £15 million, Krul for £6 million etc etc? Never mind the fact we only have half a team look at all this shiny cash!!! 

The need for getting incoming players is already desperate, and that's WITH Cantwell, god knows how difficult we'd make it for ourselves if we lost him too.  

So given the current place the squad is at and our transfer struggles, I would rather we kept him and then sold him for say £15 million at the end of the season. 

The thing is, that whole ‘we’re on to target section C now’ has been very easily bought by some, in fact I’m very surprised how easily, it’s quite staggering. It certainly hasn’t been confirmed from Webber’s mouth, and that’s the only one that matters. So what you’ve said there is yet to be proven correct, and is somewhat jumping the gun.

The point being is that we could well be very much still on for several of the top targets we’ve always wanted right from the start. Look at Man City, they didn’t bring Grealish straight in, and still haven’t - is he going to be a panic buy? Absolutely not.

I think this whole notion that anyone bought late in the window is a ‘panic buy’ is quite naive to be honest. It doesn’t take a genius to work out that the transfer window is an incredibly complex thing to navigate. Certain things out of our control may have to happen at other clubs before they finally agree to let their player/s go. And we see most windows that some of the biggest moves don’t happen until the last few hours before it shuts. 

It sounds like Webber has no intention of compromising such ‘A’ targets just to get in the ‘C’s and D’s’ just so they’re in the building  ready for Liverpool or Man City. If they have to miss the first couple of games then so be it is the clear thinking - better to wait and have exactly what we wanted for the other 36 games.

[Mr Angry 1,571]

3 hours ago, Jim Smith said:

He just should not be for sale. I cannot believe the number of our fans who are apparently happy for us to sell Buendia and Cantwell in this window. It’s staggering. No wonder the club think they can get away with it such is the pathetic acceptance of our fan base.

I totally agree. Please tell me what your plan is to prevent his sale and I will back you up 100%.

[Hank shoots Skyler 2,094]

1 minute ago, Alex Moss said:

The thing is, that whole ‘we’re on to target section C now’ has been very easily bought by some, in fact I’m very surprised how easily, it’s quite staggering. It certainly hasn’t been confirmed from Webber’s mouth, and that’s the only one that matters. So what you’ve said there is yet to be proven correct, and is somewhat jumping the gun.

The point being is that we could well be very much still on for several of the top targets we’ve always wanted right from the start. Look at Man City, they didn’t bring Grealish straight in, and still haven’t - is he going to be a panic buy? Absolutely not.

I think this whole notion that anyone bought late in the window is a ‘panic buy’ is quite naive to be honest. It doesn’t take a genius to work out that the transfer window is an incredibly complex thing to navigate. Certain things out of our control may have to happen at other clubs before they finally agree to let their player/s go. And we see most windows that some of the biggest moves don’t happen until the last few hours before it shuts. 

It sounds like Webber has no intention of compromising such ‘A’ targets just to get in the ‘C’s and D’s’ just so they’re in the building  ready for Liverpool or Man City. If they have to miss the first couple of games then so be it is the clear thinking - better to wait and have exactly what we wanted for the other 36 games.

It was an article written in the Athletic wasn't it? Its usually a pretty reliable source. 

But agree with the rest of your post. I would still prefer we kept Cantwell rather than sold him even if you are right about our targets, though. Whatever priority those targets may be. 

To my mind, Man City getting Grealish at the start or the end of the window is a lot less important than us needing to assemble a new group of players to gel together, we're trying to rebuild our squad following the loss of our two best players from last year.

I appreciate things can only happen as fast as they do, but that doesn't change the fact that we're in a pretty desperate position as things stand. A position which becomes a hell of a lot worse with the loss of Cantwell.

[Hank shoots Skyler 2,094]

8 minutes ago, Mr Angry said:

I totally agree. Please tell me what your plan is to prevent his sale and I will back you up 100%.

Guys can we all please stop trying to talk about these transfers like we don't have a choice!!!!

Our hands are not tied in this situation. We are absolutely complicit in moving our top players on, the Webber comments at the start of the window prove that. 

Take note of the Watford Sporting Director's comments above Mr Angry, do you notice a difference between his and Webber's?

Again, I keep reiterating, I am not criticising the club, I just don't agree with these dreamed up notions that these players are basically ready to pull a Peter Odemwingie stunt to get out of the club immediately and there's no way we can do anything to stop them or discourage interest from other clubs!

Edited July 31, 2021 by Hank shoots Skyler

[Alex Moss 2,165]

13 minutes ago, Hank shoots Skyler said:

It was an article written in the Athletic wasn't it? Its usually a pretty reliable source. 

But agree with the rest of your post. I would still prefer we kept Cantwell rather than sold him even if you are right about our targets, though. Whatever priority those targets may be. 

To my mind, Man City getting Grealish at the start or the end of the window is a lot less important than us needing to assemble a new group of players to gel together, we're trying to rebuild our squad following the loss of our two best players from last year.

I appreciate things can only happen as fast as they do, but that doesn't change the fact that we're in a pretty desperate position as things stand. A position which becomes a hell of a lot worse with the loss of Cantwell.

Don’t think it was the Athletic, buddy, but my understanding could well be wrong - I was under the impression that the whole ‘C List’ business came from an ‘ITK’ Twitter account which was subsequently then shared on here! Cue panic! I subscribe to the Athletic and don’t recall seeing it there either to be honest.

I totally hear what you’re saying re Grealish, and the difference in the importance (or lack of) of signing him quickly compared to our targets that we really need as quickly as possible. Just as soon as I heard Webber say he was expecting it to go late into the window to sign various players we actually really want, I thought I can live with that. What I wouldn’t be happy about is panic buying ‘C listers’ yesterday just to placate the small handful of nervous/impatient posters. That would be a disaster I feel. I trust Webber and Farke, and it at least sounds like we’re sniffing around some of the best young talent Europe etc has to offer right now - I can’t complain at that, that’s exactly what we want!

[Hank shoots Skyler 2,094]

15 minutes ago, Alex Moss said:

Don’t think it was the Athletic, buddy, but my understanding could well be wrong - I was under the impression that the whole ‘C List’ business came from an ‘ITK’ Twitter account which was subsequently then shared on here! Cue panic! I subscribe to the Athletic and don’t recall seeing it there either to be honest.

I totally hear what you’re saying re Grealish, and the difference in the importance (or lack of) of signing him quickly compared to our targets that we really need as quickly as possible. Just as soon as I heard Webber say he was expecting it to go late into the window to sign various players we actually really want, I thought I can live with that. What I wouldn’t be happy about is panic buying ‘C listers’ yesterday just to placate the small handful of nervous/impatient posters. That would be a disaster I feel. I trust Webber and Farke, and it at least sounds like we’re sniffing around some of the best young talent Europe etc has to offer right now - I can’t complain at that, that’s exactly what we want!

Ah that must've been what I was thinking of then, my mistake. 

You would like to think that Webber would not allow the sale of Cantwell if he wasn't 100% confident of the already ongoing business post-Buendia's sale, plus new signings to come in with the extra sale. I just don't like the thought of losing Skipp, Buendia AND Cantwell at once, with most of the money spent in the final 4 weeks of the window as the season starts. Its far from ideal.

I will trust Webber to get it right, but if we get to the end of the window, and significant amounts are left over from the Buendia / Cantwell revenues I will certainly question whether our approach was right or not!

[Yella Army 57]

Lets face it.. we will be likely losing our first couple of games regardless of who we manage to keep/buy. That gives us a little more time to buy later in the transfer window. If we were playing against 'lesser' sides right from the off then I would be more concerned.

 

I know this sounds very negative but it's more than likely reality. 

[Alex Moss 2,165]

18 minutes ago, Yella Army said:

Lets face it.. we will be likely losing our first couple of games regardless of who we manage to keep/buy. That gives us a little more time to buy later in the transfer window. If we were playing against 'lesser' sides right from the off then I would be more concerned.

 

I know this sounds very negative but it's more than likely reality. 

Yep, some tough games right from the off, but with a raucous Carrow Rd support, I quite fancy us to get something against Liverpool, and if we did then the positive upshot is that you’d have to say it would be very nicely timed as we work to attract perhaps some of the harder to land targets.

[Alex Moss 2,165]

6 hours ago, Hank shoots Skyler said:

Ah that must've been what I was thinking of then, my mistake. 

You would like to think that Webber would not allow the sale of Cantwell if he wasn't 100% confident of the already ongoing business post-Buendia's sale, plus new signings to come in with the extra sale. I just don't like the thought of losing Skipp, Buendia AND Cantwell at once, with most of the money spent in the final 4 weeks of the window as the season starts. Its far from ideal.

I will trust Webber to get it right, but if we get to the end of the window, and significant amounts are left over from the Buendia / Cantwell revenues I will certainly question whether our approach was right or not!

Well Hank, fair play, at least you’re prepared to wait until the end of the window before conducting a post-mortem, what’s ridiculous is when it’s carried out whilst the patient is very much alive! Going to be a very interesting few weeks, I’m already braced for Todd going to be honest but one thing you can be sure - Webber will be ready to act accordingly in that scenario.

[cornish sam 966]

Another way at looking at a dale of this magnitude is that if (and that's a big if) we had moved down our list of targets then the money from cantwell could allow us to move back up to our a list...

Also, those quotes from the Watford fella could be read to be saying pretty much what we have said "We want to keep the best players that we have in the squad (everyone wants to keep their best players, though it's not always possible). Sarr, Joao Pedro and the best players, or the players that we consider important for this team, we want to keep them (as did we with Todd, max, teemu and EMI, though not always possible). We are not in the market for selling our best players, we're just in the market for understanding how we can strengthen the team by signing good players, and especially signing players who we think can have an important chance at an important club (even though we aren't in the market to sell them we will if it is the best way to strengthen the team)."

 

'This isn't a "we aren't selling at any price" comment, it's a "we'd rather not sell but we need to see what is best for strengthening the team" comment, Webber has just wrapped it up differently.