Aston Villa likely to hand £100m summer spend to Unai Emery – Finance Expert
We’re delighted to welcome football finance expert Dr Daniel Plumley as our exclusive columnist, he’ll be giving his views on the biggest talking points at Aston Villa…
Dan Plumley has insisted that another £100million-plus spend could be on the cards at Aston Villa this summer as they look to back Unai Emery.
The finance expert admitted that despite normalising that huge figure, that is what clubs now need to spend every year in order to consistently challenge for European football.
Plumley did state that noises coming out of the club are that the owners are ready to back Emery after his impressive start to life at Villa Park.
“We’re normalising that figure aren’t we,” he exclusively told Villa News when asked about a £100m spend.
“I think that is the norm at the minute and you’ve got with Villa, a new-ish manager who would obviously want to put his mark on things, we’ve seen that the owners are willing to back the club in terms of new share offerings in the past and they’ve given managers the chance to spend money.
“We saw that they used the Grealish money wisely and invested a lot of that, but they got five or six players out of it, so if you look at what could be on the way again in the summer again, looking up, it may be quite an exciting time for Villa fans actually and if you can do that again and bring in good players, shift some on and look to keep reinvesting in the model, that’s a positive for the club.
“The caveat to that is to compete in the Premier League and get those European places, you are talking that you will have to spend £100million every summer just to keep going, so it’s not easy.
“But, the noises are coming out of that club that the owners are prepared to back that manager.”
Wes Edens and Nassef Sawiris have shown in the past that they are willing to spend, with the Jack Grealish money invested very wisely after his sale.
The challenge is now to remain sustainable as a business, but also pushing Villa to the next level with another £100million splurge or even more in the market.
In other Aston Villa news, the future of this loanee hangs in the balance as contract talks await.