Hey Big Spenders
If there’s one thing that is certain this season, Villa have spent an absolute bomb on players. MOMS lost count at around the £70m mark. No Championship club spent more and Villa even spent more than Real Madrid this season in acquiring a Championship version of the Galácticos, as they cherry picked the league’s supposed best players.
Assuming that the below figures reported by the BBC are present and correct, it was interesting to see that despite being out spent by Villa, Newcastle’s agent spend was almost double Villa’s. In fact, Newcastle’s agent spend was also more than Spurs and Arsenal, with only four Premier League teams spending more (Chelsea, Liverpool and the Manchester clubs) than the Toon.
Newcastle and Villa’s transfer spend and the resulting agent fees was a major contributor to the total agent fees of the Championship going up drastically from £26,124,044 in 2014-15 to a total of £42,429,498.
Other key contributors include Norwich and Nottingham Forest, who both surpassed the three million mark, which made them the next bigger spenders in the division.
Championship Agent Spend
| Club | Total paid to agents and intermediaries |
|---|---|
| Aston Villa | £5,421,662 |
| Barnsley | £188,209 |
| Birmingham City | £776,487 |
| Blackburn Rovers | £1,265,493 |
| Brentford | £626,159 |
| Brighton & Hove Albion | £1,494,208 |
| Bristol City | £514,816 |
| Burton Albion | £163,331 |
| Cardiff City | £1,973,635 |
| Derby County | £1,961,615 |
| Fulham | £1,285,382 |
| Huddersfield Town | £688,869 |
| Ipswich Town | £303,978 |
| Leeds United | £711,364 |
| Newcastle United | £10,449,578 |
| Norwich City | £3,272,127 |
| Nottingham Forest | £3,539,912 |
| Preston North End | £482,047 |
| Queens Park Rangers | £2,382,562 |
| Reading | £1,514,273 |
| Rotherham United | £261,633 |
| Sheffield Wednesday | £1,125,695 |
| Wigan Athletic | £775,333 |
| Wolverhampton Wanderers | £1,251,130 |
The Big Payback
While Newcastle should reap instant dividends from their spend with a swift return to the Premier League, the Villa board will no doubt become a bit edgy after being adrift from the play-off places in a worrying fashion.
While the aim was promotion, most fans would have expected at least to be involved in the play-offs after such a spend. Still, not many predicted it would take more than two seasons to return, so the pressure will be on next season, which financially will become important too, as parachute payments shrink and Financial Fair Play compromises the Villa ownership in terms of their spend.
It’s already been proved that you can’t necessarily spend your way out of the league, so next season agents might be a bit short in the pocket from Xia & co, as Villa focus on trying to build a team with what they’ve already bought.
UTV
Latest Podcast Episode Below, with a New One Incoming:
The figures look deeply worrying, but what is the source? If MOMS wants to be a useful point of debate, then making is clear who compiled stats is vital
Trevor Fisher
‘Lose’
Yes and for all of that we have ended up with one good striker, but as yesterday clearly demonstrated we loose him and we loose any threat on goal, so it’s clear to see where our priorities are for the summer, not too concerned about the result we are no where near a PL team. If we buy right we might just make it next season but I’m not holding my breath.
After all the money spent, if we don’t make it next season, it’s a massive failure.