Norwich Sporting Director admits club-record fee needed to sign current stars

Norwich City Sporting Director Stuart Webber has admitted that they will need to receive a club-record fee before selling one of their key assets this summer, with Arsenal amongst those linked with Emi Buendia.

The Argentine midfielder was key in the Canaries success this season, helping them to earn automatic promotion as champions of the Championship this term.

Buendia was credited with 31 goal contributions in the division, earning the Player of the Season award in the process, and his performances certainly haven’t gone unnoticed.

Arsenal and Aston Villa are the ones currently believed to be heading the queue for his signature, while Todd Cantwell and Max Aarons are also believed to be attracting interest in their signatures also.

The Norwich director insists that it will need to be a number in excess of £30 Million to land any of their key players however.

Webber said (via the Mirror): “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.

“That will give us great opportunities to maybe make the whole better as well. We’re really relaxed on that front.”

Such a fee could well prove to be a bargain in today’s market, and Arsenal would be mad not to be taking such an asking price seriously.

Patrick

Tags Emi Buendia

2 Comments

  1. Such a fee seems at best entirely reasonably and not a steal given their record fee is for Ben Godfrey 27.5 mil in a pre-pandemic 20/21 surpassing their 19/20 25 mil sale of Maddison who carried every bit as much hype as Buendia or Aarons.

    Seems like a 3 in front makes it a debate not a steal in this current climate (same way 60 is obviously absurd for Odegaard.). I mean Maddison was 3 years younger when sold and Buendia is not home grown (adds millions) like him either? Maddison scored 14 and assisted 8 that year in the Championship, 26 total contribution all told. Buendia has 15 scored/17 assists in the league, 32 total all told (none in other comps.)

    Seems to me 30+ mil would be really great for Norwich after the market has dipped substantially and probably the reason why they are “really relaxed on that front.” Especially given Buendia’s PL form was a much lower 1 goal, 7 assists. Odegaard at 21, 3 years younger, put up 4 goals 6 assists for Sociedad that same year in La Liga for comparison. Do rate Buendia personally but why are we trying to big up his transfer fee as Arsenal fans? Especially when such a direct comparison with Maddison exists and Odegaard exists as an obvious option too (if Real drop the insane 60 which I doubt is a serious price if they are willing to sell.)

    Seems like the intent of these articles in the wider internet are to pretend we missed out on him if he does sign for a smaller Villa like club (because we passed in favour of other targets.) Then if he kicks on we get ridiculed and if he doesn’t kick on everyone will forget they said it as they usually do, M’vila anyone? Lose/lose as always with the media.

  2. What an absolutely horrible time in our history to completely dismantle our scouting division…there’s no doubt this was in the works when Raul and Diamond Eye were vying for control, following Gazidis’s somewhat surprising exodus…I’m certainly not a Luddite by nature, so it’s not like I don’t understand the inherent merits of incorporating some form of analytics within the organizational model, but at the very least a more “balanced” hybrid approach should have been adopted…to make matters worse, we seem to have enabled particular agents to hold a unhealthy amount of influence over our recruitment decisions…sadly, I feel that if Diamond Eye had won the day, we would be in a much better place today…as Sporting Director, he took the relegated Stuttgart back into the top division, where they finished in 9th place their first year back…now that’s real progress

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