An update has emerged regarding Norwich's valuation of reported Aston Villa transfer target Todd Cantwell.

What's the talk?

According to The Sun, Villa will need to break their club-record transfer fee to land the Canaries attacking midfielder this summer.

The report claims that Villa are looking at the England under-21 international and could make a move for him if Jack Grealish completes his switch to Manchester City. If they do, Norwich will demand a fee in the region of £40m for their attacker, having sold Emi Buendia to the Midlands club earlier in the window for a deal worth up to £38m.

Fans would be livid

Aston Villa fans would surely be livid if the club decided to pay £40m for Cantwell this month as it would represent a blunder from a financial perspective. Buendia outperformed the midfielder for the Canaries in terms of goals, assists and average WhoScored ratings last season, suggesting that he is a far superior player and therefore should be worth more.

Unfortunately for Villa, clubs will now be able to increase their demands for players for several reasons. For starters, they know that Manchester City have just given them a package worth up to £100m for Grealish - assuming that goes through - so sporting directors of rival clubs can point to that as a reason for increasing their valuations.

Prices are also rising because there is less than a month to go in the transfer window and clubs will be hesitant to sell at this time. For example, if Norwich were to sell Cantwell to Villa this week, they would have less than a fortnight to replace him before their season opener against Liverpool and just over three weeks to make the most of the money banked.

Nonetheless, Cantwell is an impressive player. His former coach Gary Cockaday called his talent God-given and labeled his ability as special when speaking to The Athletic in October, saying: “Todd looked at one of them in the eye, put his toe under the ball, flicked it back over his head, turned and he was gone. All without looking at the ball.

“He did things every week that were just special. It was God-given. No one taught it. I always believed if you had someone like that, don’t change them or make them conform.”

The 23-year-old managed six goals and six assists in the Championship last season as he won the title with his hometown club. If the price was half of the £40m quoted, then it could be a fantastic deal for Villa, but they cannot expect that to happen when they are selling one of their own stars for £100m.

Johan Lange must look for bargains elsewhere in the transfer market or risk the wrath of the Villa faithful for overpaying on the English playmaker, due to his statistics in comparison to Buendia.

AND in other news, Lange must sanction "brilliant" Villa deal for £38k-p/w powerhouse, Smith needs him...