Farke Admits Canaries Favourites For Last Place

Daniel Farke admits Norwich City are favourites to come last in the Premier League and they cannot compete with Aston Villa’s spending. Farke, who revealed in May that the club’s promotion from the Championship has come three or four years earlier than they had planned for, has refused to set a points target for the coming campaign.

He told Ruhr Nachtrichten: “I would like to take 94 points again – that would certainly be enough for second place (laughs). “We are not naive. Due to our financial possibilities, we are probably favourites to finish in 20th place.”

And Farke can be forgiven for casting an envious glance at Villa Park where Dean Smith has splashed the cash in order to give his promoted side the best chance of staying in the Premier league. “When I see what our fellow promotees Aston Villa has been doing financially so far – we can not even begin to compete,” he added after Villa took their summer spending to £90million.

“So far, we have almost only committed or hired free transfer players. We have made a transfer [Sam Byram], which moves at the transfer fee in the six-digit range. “We are in last place in the transfers and have the youngest group anyway. “But we will not raise the white flag and think that in a year we will start again in the Championship. We want to put our football on the pitch, that’s our main feature.”