Aston Villa manager Unai Emery
Aston Villa manager Unai Emery(Image: Ryan Browne/Shutterstock)
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Dean Saunders insists that financial rules are hitting Aston Villa harder than any other club.
Unai Emery’s side won the Europa League last season and secured a top-four finish for the second time in three seasons, yet they have already sold Morgan Rogers and Youri Tielemans, while Lucas Digne is also expected to leave.
Although the departures of Tielemans and Digne are the result of release clauses being activated, the £117 million Villa received for Rogers has not sparked a major spending spree.
Villa have replaced Tielemans with João Gomes, while £52 million-rated talent Johan Manzambi has arrived to fill the void left by Rogers. Alejandro Garnacho has also joined on loan, with a conditional obligation to buy worth around £40 million.
The club are now waiting to offload other players, such as Leon Bailey and Evann Guessand, before they can continue strengthening the squad. Meanwhile, several of their rivals have been able to spend more freely thanks to significantly higher revenues.
It remains a major source of frustration that ambitious clubs such as Aston Villa and Newcastle United are unable to spend more aggressively because of their smaller revenue bases. In Villa’s case, that comes despite outperforming the likes of Tottenham Hotspur and Chelsea on the pitch over several seasons.
“Villa seem forced into becoming a selling club given the rules around spending in football at the moment, and it seems slightly unfair,” Saunders told LiveFootballTickets.
“It seems impossible for them to keep hold of their best players and build on what was a very good squad last season.
“When you have to sell your best players year after year, it makes the other players around the club think ‘why am I staying here? If I want to win trophies consistently, then I’ll have to move on’.
“It’s just such a shame for what is a fantastic club with great people around it. I go to a lot of Villa events, and over the past few seasons the numbers attending these events seemed to have just grown and grown, which is a credit to the club.
“Despite what they’ve achieved on the pitch, the spending rules don’t seem completely fair at the moment, and it’s hitting Villa hardest of all.”
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