Aston Villa splurged £70m on new players to find themselves mired in mid-table. Huddersfield Town, meanwhile, are at the top on a shoestring budget.
While we can’t let ourselves fall into the trap of comparing every underdog tale with Leicester City’s journey from nowhere to immortalisation, it’s fair to say Huddersfield Town’s 2016/17 campaign has a little in common with The Foxes’ remarkable tale.
Theirs is a humble, modest bunch of footballers plucked from lower leagues, signed on frees or let go by clubs higher up the footballing ladder proving that the spirit of the collective can more than make up for financial and technical disparities. And without mentioning the charismatic, bespectacled head coach, the posterboy of it all.
As it stands, David Wagner’s Terriers are third in the table with a genuine chance of reaching the top tier for the first time since 1972.
And perhaps the most remarkable aspect of their stirring rise is that they spent just over £3 million on transfer fees this summer, according to Transfermarkt.
Just to put that into perspective, that’s around £70 million less than 12 places and 23 points below them. While the likes of Ross McCormack, Aaron Tshibola, Pierluigi Gollini and Tommy Elphick failed to justify their hefty transfer fees, Huddersfield signed Danny Ward, Aaron Mooy (below), Izzy Brown and Kasey Palmer on loan from Liverpool, Manchester City and Chelsea respectively.
Furthermore, left-back Chris Lowe was brought in on a free from Kaiserslautern while ten-goal striker Elias Kachunga was picked up on a temporary deal from Paderborn; Wagner utilising his German connections.
Tony Xia has been rightly credited by Villa fans for investing heavily in a decaying and underperforming squad but his tactic of merely throwing money at the problem looks negligent compared to the intelligent scouting system put in place at the John Smith’s Stadium.
Maybe we’re wasting our breath but perhaps Villa, the perennial wasters of money could learn something from a side who have turned transfers into an art form.
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