Former Aston Villa and Republic of Ireland defender Richard Dunne says that the club’s downfall had been coming for a year and that it was almost predictable that they’d end up in their current situation the year after they finished sixth.
Martin O’Neill departed the club after becoming ever more frustrated with the lack of money being made available for future transfers by owner Randy Lerner and Dunne told The 42 that that is when the downfall started.
He said:
I think you could see it a few years back,” Dunne said in Dublin yesterday. “When Martin left, we were sixth the season beforehand and then the aim of the following one was to survive. We were surprised at how that could happen but it was well-documented at the time that the owner was taking his money away from the investment. The season Martin left we struggled and he ended up having to splash out on Darren Bent and he kept us up. But the following season was bad and it has just got worse from there.
Dunne also has experience of playing for a newly relegated team in the Championship as he was at QPR when they were in the same position that Villa will find themselves in next year and he’s warned them that getting promoted at the first time of asking will not be easy.
It’s very hard. I joined QPR and they had just been relegated. We started off really well, then we found out how difficult it was and we had a big slump. We were lucky that we fluked it through in a play-off match but it was really hard. You can see if clubs go into it with the wrong attitude and the belief that they’re going to stroll the league, they will be in for a big shock. Villa need to make sure that they get a core of good players who, first produce performances better than what they have done this season, and they also need to get the fans back on side. They’ve fallen out with the owner and they’ve lost a bit of respect for some of the players. They need to build that relationship back up and make sure the fans are back onside going into the season.
Villa travel to Watford at the weekend as they look to salvage some pride at the end of a terrible season.
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