City could buy Ollie Skipp and keep Emi Buendia. It might need some juggling, but they could achieve it. But will they?
On the flip side, losing Emi and Skippy would affect 90% of our output.
By contrast, I bet that if Brentford buy two players they could improve 90% of their output. Keep their best and add the quality. As things stand, City look like they might be going the other way.
I bet, for example, Brentford won’t be entertaining £40m bids for Ivan Toney.
Daniel Farke’s preferred 4-2-3-1 is complicated. This latest promotion was the evolution of four years of the squad learning and adapting to that formation and the philosophy that accompanies it. To remove the defensive and attacking lynchpins from that system could, in my view, be suicidal.
I personally value Skipp so much, I’d pay/swap him £ for £ what Spurs would agree to with Max Aarons going the other way. With the greatest respect to Max, he’s a replaceable fullback; a plug and play position.
Skipp’s partner in midfield, Kenny McLean, could be out for months and apart from Lukas Rupp, there is no other midfielder that knows the complexities of DF’s system.
I’ve alluded to four years of learning and tinkering, so this issue is incredibly important, and it’s not just about Skipp. It’s also about the time it takes to learn what Farke wants from Skippy’s replacement. And hitting the ground running in the Premier League is so important.
Buendia is a world-class player and is almost the exclusive reason why we score any goals at all. Norwich generally score their goals from quick counters or they score from complete attacking overloads. There’s rarely middle ground, like scoring headed goals from set-pieces or from deep-lying midfielders, who score hardly any goals at all.
If you lose Emi, you lose a style of goal scoring that has become fundamental to our entire attack, and you also lose 50% of the effectiveness of Teemu Pukki.
The culmination of this brilliant season might be bittersweet because I actually think that Max, maybe even Todd Cantwell, may need to be sold so that the evolution can continue and City survive next season…. because selling both could mean Skipp and Emi staying.
Those two, for me, are the lynchpins, even if it’s only for one more season before they move on to bigger clubs. Buy Stefan Johanson, bid for Matheus Klich, find an alternative to Pukki but, above all, invest, without losing our two most important, crucial, intrinsic players.
This is the squad to establish ourselves long term in the Premier League. Skipp and Buendia are the standard to build from, not to try and replace.
This is our time.
OTBC
Utter madness to get rid of Buendia. You won’t see Aston Villa getting rid of their Grealish for £100 million; likewise, little Brentford won’t get rid of Toney for 50 million, so why do we get so far, play good football and never capitalise on our game. We have been doing this since the Chase era. If you want to win the fans over don’t sell when you don’t need to; wait till they have grown in stature. If you do sell Buendia add in a 30% sell-on clause as you should with all your homegrown crown jewels. Do not let the others make hay from your exploits
I take your point Keith, but I fear Emi’s ambitions may tilt the balance in favour of a move. As Mike said in the piece, to lose Emi would, as things stand, hinder our productivity but with him now in the Argentina squad and mixing with the superstars of the game, his ambitions, understandably, are going to be loftier than ever. And if he wants to depart for a team that can offer him European football, by digging our heels in would leave us with a potntially disgruntled player.
From a personal perspective, I’ve pretty much accepted that Emi will depart and would like it done sooner rather than later rather than see it drag on over the summer.
I may be wrong. I usually am 🙂
We are talking about players, people who have their own views on where they want to be. If Skipp is offered a chance at a top club on top pay I doubt he’ll be coming back to Norwich. Similarly with our Argentinian ace, he’s outgrown City. All players and the men in suits who negotiate the deals know when the time is right, we are a develop and sell club. Better than than a stagnate and go no where outfit but we’re never going to be like the big boys, not without a mega rich owner, and personally I wouldn’t want to go down that path.
Webber has shown how naive he is at this level. It’s his comments that have caused this situation. All the hysteria stems from his interview.
Although, his transparency is refreshing, in the Premier League it’s caused us massive problems.
I agree with Mike on this. We should be building a team around our best players. Not destroying its core. How many more chances do we need for a crack at the PL?
Todd, Max are players we can replace. Buendia is a player you build a team around. Just watch them sell him for far less than he’s worth, then shout about record transfer.
We don’t want record transfers out. We want to be an established PL team.
Sounds like you’d better polish up your cv Daniel. Is it next year Webber’s planning to move on?
The idea that Webber is naive at this, or any other level, is as laughable as the idea you are an authority on the abilities (or otherwise) of senior management.
He is short of purchasing power though.
Webber admitted he under estimated what was needed in the last promotion Keith.
I think they are over-estimating Gianoullis, I think everyone forgets the Aarons gets isolated in set pieces because he is very short. People didn’t think McLean had enough to his game in the Premier League, and Rupp has been 3rd choice in his role too. Stieperman, Hernandez and Placheta cannot displace Dowell and Cantwell and as for cover for Pukki…. well…. forget Idah and Hugill at this level.
in short, this squad is better defensively (injuries permitting) but inferior in attack than the last time we were promoted.
In short, the only way I can see Norwich benefitting from losing Emi and Skippy is via a significant change of base formation. That’s the only way I think we can play to the strengths of those left behind and for what we can afford to bring in as replacements.
OTBC 🙂
Agree 100% with this article and Daniel Smith’s comments. It does take time to learn in to the modified DF system. Pity but I don’t think Emi will stick around after he hopefully finds his feet back in S America at international level. Skippy, even managerless Spurs won’t be wanting to lose him but will be building a team/method with him at the heart. Here he had no real competition first name on the sheet. At WHL he’ll have to fight for his place and learn a system which will take him to a new level even if Kane goes.
Thanks Roger. If those 2 are sold, there still isn’t enough transfer money to spend to replace them with the quality ready to step straight in to the Premier League. With the money they would have, they could buy some players that would make an impact and that could extract the qualities of the remaining players, but i suspect it would mean a change away from 4-2-3-1, perhaps a 3-5-2 based formation so that they could mitigate in numbers for losing Skipp and rely on another striker to help Pukki…. but I doubt that will happen, and of course it means forfeiting Todd and Dowell….. which is why, in my mind, I think Todd and Max are the ones we could afford to lose because what we could get for that money would be fantastic additions as well as keeping Buendia. For example, Connor Roberts at Swansea to replace Aarons and still have a transfer kitty for the depth of squad players we severely lack…. and with the money for Cantwell…. that’s another kitty and I’m sure they’ve got their eye on someone.
The massive thing for me is going to be scoring enough goals and helping the midfield so I still think Dowell could be improved upon, otherwise it’s hard to know where the goals will come from in 4-2-3-1,…. because Pukki won’t be dropped (unless Buendia isn’t around and then the pre-season will open up a reality check on Pukki)….. and especially when our deep midfielders don’t score at all…. and we know he won’t drop McLean so you’d expect an expensive replacement for Skipp to partner King Kenny.
Its a little depressing and slightly sad that, having attained promotion, we are consumed with feverish and unwanted attention surrounding most of our best players.
While it is hard to ignore the fact that buendia in particular is a ready made champions league level player and deserves his chance, the fact is the glass ceiling is once more banging on our heads.
Sell buendia to atletico for around 40 million with add ons and potentially we can live with that. Sell him to arsenal or worse, villa a relegation rival for circa 30 million and Houston, we have a problem!
Throw in a cheeky move for aarons and the feeling is, we’ve been mugged off again.
Let’s be clear on this, any funds raised through what are, according to webber unnecessary sales should be ploughed back into the team. In the shape of some serious premier league ready, international standard players. Yes Delia, that means letting go of some serious funds I’m afraid.
The early soundbites from webber seem to indicate that our record, in both directions of travel, will be broken. I would suggest that in the event of unwelcome buendia/aarons/cantwell news webber lines up some quality AND quantity by way of strengthening. Otherwise I’m afraid, we face more humiliation.
The mood since promotion was confirmed has changed somewhat, with a perception that the club is actively talking up transfer business in the shape of “make an offer” statements. They are seemingly entering a minefield this summer and need to negotiate it skillfully. Let’s see what the clubs got in its locker and if this self funding model is worth persevering with.
“The mood since promotion was confirmed has changed somewhat, with a perception that the club is actively talking up transfer business in the shape of “make an offer” statements.”
I agree. And given we were effectively promoted 2 months ago, I’m surprised we haven’t made moves BEFORE the Euros…. given that for the work permit you need to be an international, and if you perform well at the Euros your price goes up. And then in the domestic market, given how shallow our squad is…. Alex Mowatt is a free agent, Famara Diedhou…. surely these could get pre-contract agreements etc? likewise, there are 5 or 6 players from the top 7 or 8 Championship sides, Swansea will be nearly bankrupt after Covid and the last parachute payment…. and everyone else will be begging for player sales because of Covid. Surely we can cherry pick from them?
“Yes Delia, that means letting go of some serious funds I’m afraid.“
What serious funds? Surely the club will spend as much as it can afford? Are you suggesting Delia should sell her house or something? Would you?
I don’t know where this extra money is supposed to come from, let alone ‘serious funds’. She could sell the club to an American Pension Fund I suppose…. then we’d be in the Champions League in a few years no doubt.
If you take the time to read what I’ve said you will see that I am advocating ploughing the tens of millions from the forthcoming sales back into the team. Its simple really.
You can’t say that Skipp the loanee is irreplaceable due to his knowledge of DF’s system whilst also saying it takes four years to learn that system so we have to keep him. At the same time if we could swap him out for Aarons plus cash I’d like it – but you’re probably looking at Aarons plus at least £30m and that’s not gonna happen.
The fact is that I would rather get £30-40m for Emmi now, when the demand is there, than have him stropping about and not pulling his weight for a season (and we all know DF will drop him if his head isn’t in it) then have to let him go for half that or see him run his contract out. You can’t just keep him and expect him to perform when he may well not want to be here if news of a serious offer comes in. NCFC cannot keep players if a big club comes in, this is a fact of life. To say that we need to keep him for this season smacks of naivety. As is any suggestion that offers will come in just because Webber said in an interview that someone might go. Yeah, cos no-one was talking about anyone buying Buendia before that…!
Hi Justin, thanks for the reply.
Ref your comment about Skipp being a loanee contradicting my comment about the 4 year learning curve….. actually it respectfully proves my point because just look at how we started last season…. Skipp did take some time to settle in. In fact, for the first 2 months City were really poor. Start like that in the Premier League and you’re relegated by Cmas.
And in addition to that, the only other change was Gibson and Quintilla, and a CB and LB don’t really affect how the system works. It’s everyone forward of them that needs to learn the intricacies of 4-2-3-1. Skipp was the only real change last season so even as a loanee, the remaining players supported and understood the system.
Thanks for the input, I am thankful for all opinions and love to discuss them!
Hi All
Right as supporters we would all like to see our club being as successful as possible and who is the DoF or manager will be hogtied to a steak and left to rot while the club is under funded.
Both Webber and Farke knew what they were taking on abd accepted it know it could make or break their reputations.
Until city gets an owner will to either invest or find investors to help the club go forward we will always be little ol Norwich that the big clubs try to rip off and steal our talented player’s.
We all hear the talk of Emi, Todd and Aaron’s could be sold and then hope for an SW miracle to find the next cheap gem 💎 or two but his contract runs out next season so could be gone.
He is quoted as saying he will not leave city in the lurch but that depends what offers if any comes in or as he says he might go a different route away from football so not hold our breath on him staying.
Can we survive if we loss 1, 2 or 3 of our best players in some quarters the question is can we survive if they all stay.
The bigger question is if Hanley, Pukki or Krul have a great Euro’s will city get offers for them that Delia can’t refuse then their is the possibility of Injuries that could wreck our chances this season.
Lots of food for thought 🤔
Onwards and upwards
OTBC
Stay Safe and Keep Healthy 🙏
My point is, Norwich should be offering Spurs £25m for Skipp and writing it off because they want Aarons.
And Emi will leave this season, but I bet he’s just as happy knowing he’ll play every week. Ask him if he wants to go to a Champs League club as a guaranteed starter in 1 year, or maybe even to Barca after Messi has assessed him, or if he wants to go to Villa or Arsenal where he won’t be at his best.
For me, those 2 WOULD stay, albeit only for another season. I actually proposed selling Emi after relegation because I knew he’d become so crucial to us that his involvement would become critical, and had we sold him then we’d have been able to build around another player who would last the 2-3 seasons necessary to establish ourselves before young players inevitably outgrow the club.
The worry for me is that whoever comes in will need to carry the team…. I.e some quite profound signings. Because anyone that thinks 4-2-3-1 will survive without Emi, without Teemu’s goals and with, respectfully, the the limited quality of Gianoullis, McLean, Rupp, Idah, Hugill…. to a point even Dowell and Cantwell (because they need to get the ball to express themselves) is living in a bubble.
Emi and Skipp will go, but it should be at the end of this coming season, not before it.
I guarantee, and i say this tactically, we will struggle more than last time out without Skipp
And Emi almost certainly irrespective of who is bought to replace them. The only way it will be achievable is if DF ditches 4-2-3-1 for the players remaining and for ease of transition of those that come in.
Cheers
Let’s all just pause a second and remember who we are and what’s going on. PL regular is the goal, brought about by developing players and making a profit on them, but, and here is the thing that gets missed by most, there is a player to replace them. Examples: Mumba, Big Andy O, Barden, and a host of loan/U23s I don’t know about. There is a reason all of our recent investment has gone into Colney. Skipp is highly unlikely, and Spurs would be incredibly foolish, to return. Mark my words, Jacob Sorensen is the man to fill that role. Yes it’s a massive step and it’s the PL blah blah but the kids has the talent, skill and character to do it. EMI is a huge loss and will fetch a lot of money that will be invested in the next creative player ripe for the picking. He is too good for us, deal with it, his time is now and Norwich can’t take him where he needs to go. The rest stay, youth plugs the gaps, a few hardened PL ready players come in and we see if we can stay up. Probably not but there is an ever increasing pool of talent itching to get themselves into that NCFC 1st team, playing football that will always p**s the Championship. We will continue to make a profit on players and one day, be able to make a real go of staying in the PL. But that time is not now. Why? £30m loss due to COVID and we are a self funding club. End of story.
Spud, I agree that we produce players to replace the stars as they move away.
Except for Pukki.
Except for Buendia.
Except for Skippy.
We cannot compensate for losing them unless DF changes formation in a pragmatic manner, 4-2-3-1 without these guys in the Premier League is insane.
I’ve no issue with us selling our stars because I love that we are self funded. But with promotion, that 30 million loss is irrelevant. We DONT NEED TO SELL, not until the end of the season should the worst happen.
What I’d argue SW and DF do is sell Todd and or Max, IF NEEDS MUST, but for gods sake keep Emi. He is the one player capable of keeping us up.
And as for the recurring Skip debate, yes, he’s too good for us. But I bet if you offered 25 million quid for him, via a sale of Max or Todd, Skippy would be back here in a flash. Because as good as he is, he’s not 25 million in the Premier League until he proves otherwise. Offer Daniel Levy 25 million as a cash sale. See what happens.
Yes, everyone knows about him, and he’s worth double that at the end of next season, but right now Spurs have a point to prove and will need to spend big after (when) they sell Kane. Now or never for us getting Skippy, and he knows he’s starting and playing 90 minutes of every game for us. He knows we are the perfect stage for him
It will be Emi’s ambition that causes us to sell, not a few £m from a mid table PL club we can’t stand in his way. If Spurs are silly enough not to realise how wonderful a player Skipp is, and if they want Max, and if they are willing to do a deal (which will be a top end price, you won’t get a bargin out of them) then happy days, Skipp becomes a fully employed Canary. But that is too many ifs in my world. I am also not sure we will get the money we want for Max and Todd with the lack of money floating around due to COVID. But we will see. Nice article to start the debate. Top stuff.
“We will continue to make a profit on players and one day, be able to make a real go of staying in the PL. But that time is not now.“
This is our fourth PL promotion in just over a decade and now is not the time? I guess fifth time’s a charm.
This will be the 2nd spell in the PL under our self funding model, The others don’t count.
Our financial model hasn’t changed. It’s just been rebranded.
Mike,
Take your point, but I don’t believe keeping Emi, or indeed acquiring the services of Ollie Skipp, will come down just to £s. If only it did. Both players will be sought after way beyond the city walls and in the case of Emi, if – for example – Atleti came calling, then there’s no way we could compete, and probably wouldn’t even try.
Equally, I’m not quite as dismissive as you of the abilities if Idah and Hugill … at least not yet.
We managed to progress despite losing the someone of Maddison’s quality in the summer of 2018. Webber’s track record is such, I wouldn’t put it past him to unearth a creative talent to fill (if needed) the Emi-shaped void.
And let’s not forget, it didn’t take Skipp long to get on board with Farkeball. As difficult as it may seem right now, quality players can adapt. Complicated our version of 4-2-3-4 may be, but good players will find a way to fit in.
An interesting few months ahead for sure.
The only reason I wrote this piece is because the tone of the club is leading me to think they want to sell someone and i don’t think they will get anywhere near enough for Todd or Max, although both are arguably the easiest to replace…. which leaves only Buendia as a likely sale.
Maddison was an interesting one because we were moving towards 4-2-3-1 and DF had Leitner, Trybull and Vrancic in and around the team, and because we were nowhere near promotion candidates, selling Maddison was plausible.
My worry about Buendia is this….. when he’s unavailable, we are really quite poor, even by Championship standards. Yes he can be replaced, but he is the heartbeat of that team. Life will go on without him but Dowell, Cantwell, Buendia and the defensive midfield will be hugely effected.
its the telepathy with Pukki that is the real issue. We all know that partnerships like that come along once in a blue moon. According to Archant, the club will release Hugill if the right suitor comes along. Perhaps the main point about Idah is that never once has he displaced Pukki on merit, which says it all. If he was good enough, he’d play.
We are now a Premier League team. Skippy knows that unless he can break through at Spurs, we provide the best platform for him to market himself. I cannot fathom him being loaned to anyone else but back here, and why on earth would he want to risk anything but the performances he knows he can attain playing Farkeball?
It just seems to me that a lot of City fans are selling the club short, accepting a death sentence before there is even a trial. I know Emi and Skipp will go after but it should be after this season. I’ve never seen such an opportunity for this team to build from and it would be devastating to not try. This team, with Buendia and with Skipp, could be strengthened within budget and perform like Leeds have done. But selling before it starts? 🙁
After a knackering day out on the N Norfolk coast good to come back to this. Emi should only go if a CL side comes knocking. But to some average mid table PL side (also beginning with an A!) Skippy quickly fitted in with FarkeBall version 2 (a) as he is a top prospect (b) be fair it has only been two seasons in the development, our time in the PL only showed we needed two fit proven CBs AND a way of scoring if Temmu loses confidence.
We have good young prospects to step up (Mumba, Omobamidele, Sorensen, Idah) but McLean and Rupp are probably less likely to grow, they have already reached their potential (but worryingly not sustained it for very long without getting injured.)
Replacing Emi and Skippy is nigh on impossible for any amount of money so I agree with the original thesis:- it is time for Farke to tweak his system around the resources already in the hutch or that can be acquired for reasonable money and/or with growth potential.
For months the club have talked openly about they will have to sell one or more of our best players……..why?
As others have commented Brentford may not sell their best player, and the one who was the main man in getting them up. Likewise Emi, was our main man, he played the biggest role in us going up.
This season he should not be sold under any circumstances or for any amount for money. He will be essential if the club really wants to stay up this year. Furthermore his value will only increase.
I’f cash is really needed, sell anyone but Emi!
This transfer window will indicate if the club really have any intention of giving it a real go this time, unlike our last visit to the PL where they seemed happy to be relegated, and trouser some cash.
The idea that we HAVE to sell is fantasy. We kept Buendia when were relegated, after a hit to our PL television money from COVID and relegation. I can’t fathom how, upon promotion, back to PL revenues and crowds hopefully returning, that we HAVE to sell him.
I hardly think we actually want to lose any of our top assets, but we will if the right money comes in and it’s the right move for the player. That basically applies to any club no matter where they are in the pyramid except maybe the top few. Don’t be naive enough to think Brentford wouldn’t sell Toney if the right offer came in. Remember he was just a replacement for Watkins a year ago, who was a replacement for Maupay… they’ll have the next one lined up already. I doubt the right offer will come in because he hasn’t yet done enough over a number of seasons and also didn’t break through initially at the top level when with Newcastle. Buendia on the other hand was very good for two years and stepped up to exceptional last year so it’s a bit different. Max has also been consistently very good for 3 years so is likely to attract more interest.
I think a lot of the messaging is around timing. Our most difficult spell last season was at the start because of all of the speculation and distraction to Emi and Todd (btw, hats off to Max for
ignoring it all, unbelievable professionalism at that time for such a young man). By starting the speculation now, Webber is basically saying: if you want them, then pay up and come and get them. That way by the start of the season, the players will either be gone and we’ll have moved on or they’ll have realised after 3 months of talking about it that no one is willing to stump up the cash. If it’s the later then I think they’ll all then knuckle down and get on with the job without any toys being thrown out of prams.
I like Farke as a person. I like his football. I like this squad individually and as a group. I hope we smash some big PL clubs and finish top half. I believe with a few shrewd additions it’s possible.
BUT if Webber and Farke can’t keep us up this time, then something’s really wrong with the club. This is almost certainly the most talented, tightly knit, experienced squad we’ve been promoted with. We’re talking about multiple ‘Championship” players worth 30-40M.
The idea that we don’t give this our best shot, that we sell our top talent and cross our fingers, should appall fans.
BANG ON
I think we all agree with this, but shouldn’t we give them a chance to do it without telling them how to?
To suggest that Skipp and Buendia are irreplaceable is just ludicrous. Honestly, it is just completely ludicrous. Neither are unique players. Both are unproven in the PL. What about if we keep them and they’re not very good (as Emi wasn’t very good last time.) SW/DF scouted them in the first place so I’m kind of hoping they know what to look for as replacements more than we do.
Maybe we promised Emi that we’d let him go if he got us back up? Should we just ignore that now? Maybe SW is trying to get that deal done early so that he has the money to buy the players we’ve already identified. I don’t know any more than you do, but clearly I have more faith that they know what they’re doing and fully understand that another relegation this year is failure for them both – and their CVs might not survive that. That’s a big motivation to get it right.
I don’t like to think of Emi playing for someone else, but I’ll get over it when we have another hero to admire. Which we will.
NB I loved the comment on here about Delia spending more money. Almost 30 years after she rescued us, some fans still don’t understand.
I understand totally. Once again to put it clearly so you can understand, my comment stated that any money raised by unnecessary sales should be ploughed back into the team via new signings. I actually think some people are being deliberately obtuse.