Higher net spend than Liverpool & Man City - Aston Villa's FFP gamble to break into top four

Despite enjoying a remarkable season in the Premier League, Aston Villa fans would be forgiven for feeling a little under the weather lately. On Sunday, Unai Emery’s side were thoroughly dismantled in front of their own fans by fellow top-four contenders Tottenham Hotspur, when Ange Postecoglou’s side arrived at Villa Park and unceremoniously won the game by a clear four-goal margin. Unfortunately for the Midlands club, that wasn’t the only bad news that fans have had to stomach recently. 

Just a few days prior, the club had released their latest financial results for the 2022/23 year, which laid bare just how much a top-four finish would mean for the ambitious side. After making a small profit of £0.4 million (€0.5m) the previous year, Villa’s finances swung in the opposite direction 12 months later and has seen the club register a huge loss of £120m (€141m). According to the football financial writer, Swiss Ramble, the club have lost no less than £420m (€493m) over the course of the 10 years prior to these most recent results - the highest deficit of any Premier League club in that period. And when we look the club’s activity in the transfer window we can see just how precarious their situation may be. 

Indeed, when we take a look at Villa’s signings and sales over the course of the last five years, we find that the Premier League outfit have spent around €603m on new players since the start of the 2019/20 season. That puts the Villa Park side sixth among their peers in the English top flight in terms of money spent on transfer fees. However, the real issue for the Midlands club is that they’ve only made €219m on player sales in that period of time, which means their five-year net spend in the transfer window currently stands at €383m. Which, as we can see in the table above, is the sixth highest in the Premier League and above the likes of Manchester City and Liverpool. 

Those figures suggest that the club’s spending on new players is more or less in line with their standing in English football, but where Villa are falling behind is in their ability (or reluctance) to sell players for significant income. Although the club’s income of €219m is certainly a larger number, it’s a little misleading when we consider that 54% of that came from just one move - Jack Grealish’s €118m move to Man City in the summer of 2021. Remarkably, when we look beyond Grealish’s sale we find that the club have sold just one player for more than €20m in the last eight seasons - Cameron Archer’s €21.5m move to Sheffield United at the start of this season. 

And there’s little doubt that Villa are well aware of the need to address this imbalance. In the January transfer window the club spent just €18.5m on new players, with Emery more or less pleading poverty due to the Premier League’s financial fair play rules. “We are trying to keep to Financial Fair Play while holding on to the best players in our squad,” noted the Spanish tactician. “But of course we are not closed off to selling someone if a very good offer comes in and it gives us the possibility to improve our FFP position. We are going to work with respect to the rules.” 

While such a remark may have set off alarm bells among Villa fans, it was perhaps a well-placed warning for what may be about to come for this team in the summer transfer window. Emery has a number of sell-able stars in his team - most notably Ollie Watkins (market value: €60m), Jacob Ramsey (€42m) and Douglas Luiz (€60m), with the latter being tipped as a potential €100m sale in the summer window if England’s biggest clubs take a serious interest in the Brazilian talent. Villa have spent a lot of money to get to the position they now find themselves in, but they may now be forced to start selling some star players and making some money before the start of next season.