Premier League sides Arsenal and Aston Villa have been heavily linked with a move for Norwich City players Emi Buendia and Todd Cantwell but they will have to sweat it out if they wish to get their hands on either of them.
Arsenal and Villa have shown a keen interest in signing Emi Buendia while Villa have also been keeping tabs on Cantwell for some time now. Some people thought these two players might turn out to be bargain buys but according to Norwich City sporting director, Stuart Webber, the club will sell them only on one condition.
He told BBC Sport: “If we do sell one, it’s going to be a club-record deal.
“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 squad better as well. We’re really relaxed on that front.
“You can spend £120m net and get relegated. That’s been proven more than once. We can’t go all in now just to try to stay up for one season because, if we get relegated, we’re in deep, deep trouble.
“You can do that if you have a rich benefactor who says, ‘Spend £100m – if it goes wrong, then I can actually afford to write that off’. We don’t have that.
“Our version of that would be to go into administration. We can’t take that risk.”
A club record transfer fee means Arsenal and Villa will have to table offers of over £30 million if they wish to get their hands on either Buendia or Cantwell in the summer. And we are not sure either of these two clubs will be interested in walking on that path.
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Arsenal and Villa are not going to play in Europe next season so they will be working on a really tight transfer budget in the summer meaning every penny they spend will be properly scrutinized by the management as well as the fans.
The Gunners already have played like Pepe and Bukayo Saka who play in the same position as Emi Buendia so Mikel Arteta will be really cautious before spending so much money on the Norwich City winger.
Also, Villa could receive a huge amount of money if they manage to sell Jack Grealish to one of the big-six sides this season, in which case, they can easily outbid teams like Arsenal. But if they cannot generate funds from players sales then we doubt if the Villa Park outfit will move for either Cantwell or Buendia.
