With a new manager having already had a transformative effect on the team and a new man coming in from Barcelona, the future looks bright for Aston Villa.
It says something for the direction English football has taken in the 21st century that the presence of a club the size of Aston Villa in the top six or seven of the Premier League should come as something of a surprise. This is, after all, the biggest team in England’s second city, former European champions who have been present and correct since the Football League took its first steps a century and a quarter ago.
Villa’s revival has been as much a matter of the club’s recent history of mismanagement as anything else. The last decade of Aston Villa has been all about decline and rebirth, of a club which stagnated and then fell into the Championship before regaining its poise. Although they returned to the Premier League in 2019 after two years away, the three years that followed were largely about consolidation and establishing a place in the middle order of the division.
But after three years of relative consolidation, the 2022/23 season has had the feel of a rollercoaster ride. The dog days of the brief and unsuccessful Steven Gerrard era brought the feeling that the club could be sliding back into another period of stagnation. As autumn started to turn to winter, Aston Villa were getting dragged towards the event horizon of another scrap against relegation.
By the time a supine 3-0 defeat at Fulham left them in 17th place in the middle of October, separated from the relegation places only by goal difference and with just two wins from their first 12 games of the season, Gerrard’s flush had been well and truly busted. There have been many premature managerial sackings in what has been a decidedly skittish Premier League season, but the replacement of Steven Gerrard didn’t feel like one of them. By the time of the Fulham game, it was perfectly evident that the former England international was not going to suddenly develop the chops to dig the team out if its rut.
Since then, the revival of their fortunes has been nothing short of stunning. Midweek results elsewhere nudged them down to 8th, but under Unai Emery Aston Villa are right in the mix for a place in Europe next season, even though Champions League football is now just out of reach.
Emery’s obvious organisational skills have had a clearly transformational effect on a squad that had been looking moribund prior to his arrival….
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