Konsa: PSR rules have 'killed' Villa | OneFootball

Ezri Konsa has claimed that football’s spending rules “killed” Aston Villa during a challenging summer transfer window.

The Midlands club, who have had a poor start to the season with just one point from three games and no goals scored, were constrained by both the Premier League’s profitability and sustainability regulations and their Uefa equivalents.

Villa made just one significant signing – £30.5m for Evann Guessand from Nice – and added only four other first-team players, with Marco Bizot joined on deadline day by Victor Lindelöf, Harvey Elliott, and Jadon Sancho.

The club were open to selling Emiliano Martínez but could find no buyer, while Jacob Ramsey was moved to Newcastle for £39m despite Unai Emery’s preference to retain him. As a homegrown player, Ramsey’s sale counted entirely as profit on the books.

Villa’s high wage-to-revenue ratio, which stood at 96% in 2023-24 according to Deloitte, also left them hampered. Uefa fined the club on 4 July for breaching its squad cost ratio (SCR) rules and warned that they could face competitive restrictions unless they ended the window with a positive transfer balance. Villa have qualified for this season’s Europa League.

Konsa is currently with England as they prepare for Saturday’s World Cup qualifier against Andorra at Villa Park. His focus is on building on promising performances under Thomas Tuchel, but the situation at Villa and the impact of PSR and SCR regulations remain unavoidable topics.

“It is crazy,” Konsa said. “I don’t understand it myself but from the outside looking in, it doesn’t look too good. I know that and I know it’s really killed us this transfer window. We’re going to have to deal with what we’ve got now.

“Everyone knows it’s been a tough start but it’s part of football. We’ve done some recruitment on deadline day so hopefully the boys that have come in can really help us.”