Former professional footballer Carlton Palmer has warned Aston Villa that they need to spend £1bn to consistently compete with the likes of Manchester City, Chelsea and Liverpool.
Deloitte reported that the gross spend of Premier League clubs during the summer transfer window (2021) was £1.1bn which saw top flight clubs go beyond the £1bn mark for a sixth summer in a row.
According to Sky Sports, Aston Villa were the fifth top spenders during the summer transfer window as they spent £93m, with Danny Ings, Leon Bailey, Emi Buendia, Ashley Young and Axel Tuanzebe all arriving at Villa Park. The club also saw Jack Grealish depart for Manchester City for a British transfer fee of £100m [BBC Sport].
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Palmer, though, believes that Aston Villa need to spend £1bn to consistently compete with the top clubs and for Champions League football, telling This is Futbol: “I don’t see them breaking into the top six with the squad they’ve got and to break into the top six you’ve got to spend a lot of money.
“What people don’t understand is if you look back, I did some research the other day about the Premier League and people say Man City haven’t bought the Premier League, Man City have bought the Premier League. They’ve spent a billion pounds.
“If you look at the teams that are competing at the top of the league consistently, who’ve spent over a billion pounds, Man City, Chelsea, Liverpool, they’re consistently in the top four – that is the type of money. They’re spending a billion pounds to be in that position.”
The trio of clubs mentioned have had success in the last few years as they have picked up silverware. Manchester City are the reigning Premier League champions and have three of the last four top flight titles with Liverpool winning the league title in the 2019-2020 campaign and that came on the back of them winning the Champions League in the previous season.
Chelsea won the league title in 2016-2017 and also lifted the Champions League last term, as they defeated Manchester City in an all-English final.