I remember them being above mid table but after they beat Tottenham theyre now fourth and only 2 points off the top of the league. That means that if they didn’t lose to Nottingham forest or Everton they would be first. Ik they really haven’t had difficult match ups but it’s still very impressive.
Yup. They had a brief stint years ago where they were excellent and had a great squad too. Then crashed and got relegated and rebuilt.
That’s the cycle. A team gets a bunch of quality players, gets into Europe, struggles to juggle with squad depth and has their best players poached. Grealish kept them up, his money afforded a group of decent players. The chairman made some good comments about replacing him in the aggregate. Many of those didn’t work out. But they’re well run compared to others it seems.
That said, still not sustainable. Once the best players demand 2x wages or they move on. Brighton imo may be the only one to break that cycle as they are so good at recruitment. And can afford the squad depth given where they’re recruiting from and how quickly they move the players on. Brighton’s ownership is playing football manager with the editor open.
Under Lerner he just handed wads of cash to Martin O’Neill to buy whoever he wanted. He spent it on ageing slightly above average players with no resale value. Lerner didn’t have the funds to sustain the spending, sold off our best players and cut off the money, which is why we ended up relegated.
The difference this time is Villa have huge financial backing and a proper structure in place. Villa players are all tied down to long contracts so if somebody wants to buy one, they’ll have to pay stupid money (e.g. Luiz to Arsenal in January is pure fantasy). If we did, that money would be reinvested in the squad and help us a lot with FFP.
This is early days for Villa - our squad can and will get a lot better. I don’t see why we can’t sustain a challenge to the big 6 in the long term, unless we make some really poor choices behind the scenes and if/when Emery leaves we do a bad job replacing him.
Completely agree yeah that this is better than the previous situation. I don’t see it as so much better that they will sustainably challenge for Europe.
The main point I made is that holding on to those talents is incredibly difficult. They will push for a move away, as has happened every time. The reason I bring up Brighton was their example that they know their stars won’t stay for the long-term, just as Villa’s won’t. Or West Ham. Or Brentford (who basically took Brighton’s strats) and other mid-table clubs and also went from lower league to stable Prem. What they do so well is finding the talents to replace them. They brought through Maupay and Watkins (to Villa) and then Toney, selling each for a major profit on their way up the leagues (assuming Toney goes to Arsenal as expected) and have a ready replacement at similar or better level ready with that money. Brighton and Brentford are SO much better than practically everyone else at finding the next player.
Villa, with all due respect, aren’t. Grealish again is a useful barometer here. For his 100m, Villa bought Danny Ings the slightly above overage player), Beundia, Bailey, and Digne. With all due respect, fair to say none of those are top half material right now. And then later Coutinho (again, overage player with no resale value). Maybe Diaby and Torres are different this season. But they’re an investment on top of that.
Would agree Villa are a much better run club than many. Wouldn’t agree that they will sustainably be challenging for the top 6 tho.