Aston Villa still spending despite restrictions
- Published
Aston Villa have committed to spend about £280m in Unai Emery's summer rebuild.
The arrivals of Ibrahim Mbaye and Taylor Harwood-Bellis on deadline day shows they are continuing to spend big.
They have broken their transfer record twice with the arrivals of forwards Johan Manzambi (£52m) and Nicolas Jackson (£65m), so cannot plead poverty.
If all clauses and add-ons are triggered, Villa would be pushing £300m this summer, despite needing to sell to comply with Uefa and Premier League financial rules.
Uefa limits the amount of revenue spent on wages, transfers and agent fees to 70% and Villa have already breached the regulations twice.
They were fined £19.4m in June - with £12.9m suspended - having been hit with a £9.5m sanction for a similar breach the year before, and they need to ensure they break-even because of their settlement agreement with Uefa.
Despite that, Matteo Ruggeri (£17m), Harwood-Bellis (£30m), Joao Gomes (£38m) Jackson, Zion Suzuki (£30m), Manzambi and Mbaye (£47m) have all arrived, while midfielder Leon Goretzka has also joined on a free transfer after leaving Bayern Munich.
That comes having brought in just over £300m through the sales of Morgan Rogers, Youri Tielemans, Lucas Digne, Emi Martinez, Ezri Konsa and Ollie Watkins.
That figure also includes Enzo Barrenechea's £10.3m departure to Benfica and Roma paying £21.3m to make Donyell Malen's loan permanent.
Emery said following Monday's defeat at Arsenal that he was happy with their transfer business, and that everything Villa had planned for they had achieved.
It was always going to be a summer of change at Villa Park, although the depth of the transition with so many key players leaving is something Emery has already admitted he did not expect.
