Aston Villa Beats Arsenal in the race for Norwich playmaker Emi Buendia with the former agreeing at a fee of around £35m with add-ons.
Long gone are the days when Arsenal attracted the world’s best talents, and, currently, the Gunners have missed out on one of the primary targets to Aston Villa, Emi Buendia.
The 24-year-old Emi Buendia has seen his stock increase since his arrival in England in 2018. Norwich City secured a club-record fee for Buendia who turned out to be one of their star players over a couple of seasons.
In the 2019/20 Premier League, Buendia put in a strong performance but was unable to prevent the Canaries from relegation to the Championship. The playmaker chose to stay with Norwich in the 2020/21 campaign and turned a stellar campaign that saw him being named Championship player of the season. Also, he helped secure the club’s promotion back to the Premier League.
Meanwhile, it’s not known if Arsenal tabled an offer for Buendia who was an alternative option that was on the Emirates Stadium radar for a while. However, Aston Villa who has seen questions asked of Jack Grealish’s future and will not be signing Ross Barkley on a permanent basis swooped ahead of the Gunners to land on the Argentine star. And now, Aston Villa is sorting out the final details of a club-record signing that could be announced very soon.
Having lost the playmaker, Arsenal is still in search for one. Mikel Arteta continuous to weigh his options when it comes to additions in his creativity department.
Martin Odegaard impressed during his short-term loan from Real Madrid and he therefore remains an interest to the Gunners. He is, however, returning to Real Madrid and it remains to be seen what role he will handle under the new head coach Carlo Ancelotti.