Aston Villa legend Peter White says that Villa must avoid the “panic” of the Championship.
Villa are currently sat at the bottom of the league, seven points adrift of 17th placed Sunderland. They haven’t won since the first day of the season against Bournemouth, even after sacking Tim Sherwood and replacing him with Frenchman Remi Garde.
Speaking to BBC WM, White has said that Villa must avoid relegation at all costs, with the Championship being a difficult division to get out of.
If you look at the Championship and think, if you go down into that mire, it’s very difficult.
We’ve seen it with a lot of clubs – they find it very hard to get back.
Relegation would see Villa miss out on the fund from the Premier League’s huge new TV deal next season, which is worth up to five billion for the league as a whole. White says that even with the promise of parachute payments, dropping down a division would present a greater challenge.
They do have a cushion, but it’s hard, I look at the managers that have gone in the Championship and, for me, that’s because there’s a little bit of a panic situation that we all want to get into the Premier League.
He also say’s how bleak the situation looks for the Villans, with major departures such as Christian Benteke and Fabian Delph being major factors in why Villa are at the bottom of the table.
To look at the games they’ve played and they way they’ve played, it’s desperate – you just can’t see where they’re going to get the points from.
They just haven’t got any confidence and to lose to Watford you’re thinking maybe this is the year we go down.
The biggest thing for me was losing Christian Benteke and Fabian Delph – if you haven’t got anyone scoring the goals like Benteke did you haven’t got a cat-in-hell’s chance.
