Aston Villa, a staple of the Premier League for decades, 1982 European cup winners, seven times First Division and FA Cup winners and winners of the League Cup on five occasions, now found themselves languishing in 16th place in the Sky Bet Championship, just seven points above the relegation zone.
A dramatic fall from grace which started in the Premier League last season first under Tim Sherwood and then Remi Garde saw the Villans slip out of the top-flight and into the Championship.
Roberto Di Matteo was appointed in June 2016 and given a sizeable transfer budget to go to war with, but by October, despite the signings of Jonathan Kodjia et al, Di Matteo exited stage right.
However, salvation seemed to be in the air for Villa with Steve Bruce, a mercurial manager with past experience of getting teams out of the Championship, appointed and the Villa Park outfit responded well initially, going on an 8-game unbeaten run.
That improvement, however, was again short-lived. Villa haven’t won since Boxing Day; a 2-1 home win against Burton Albion. Halfway through this dreadful run of form, Tony Xia once again gave his manager a wealthy transfer budget with Conor Hourihane, James Bree, Henri Lansbury, Neil Taylor, Scott Hogan and three other new faces joining the side.
Despite this, Villa have not won a game in nine matches with Bruce’s team suffering back-to-back losses at Villa Park courtesy of a 1-0 defeat to Ipswich Town before a 3-1 drubbing by play-off contenders Barnsley.
So the question remains, what is wrong with one of the biggest clubs in England?
Well, put simply, it seems that change has happened far too often in recent times. A change of ownership from Randy Lerner to Tony Xia, a change of manager from Di Matteo to Bruce and now a change in personnel with eight new players joining the club in January. It seems that too much flux is afoot at Villa with no time given to let the team gel and work out how to play with one another.
To further this, trouble off the field engulfed the club with Ross McCormack, a big money signing, publicly falling out with Bruce over his desire to play for the club. His departure to Nottingham Forest along with Aaron Tshibola was added by Rudy Gestede’s move to Middlesborough and Jordan Ayew’s transfer to Swansea. The loss of McCormack, Gestede and Ayew cannot be under-estimated with all three being potential match winners if given a chance.
The men who taken their place notably new signing Scott Hogan, must now prove they can find the net as the Villans have only scored five goals in eight games, a real sorry state of affairs. Kodjia to be fair has scored 11 goals in 23 games but he is accounting for the majority of Villa’s goals with the side scoring just 30 goals in 31 matches this season and one man alone cannot propel Villa up the table.
Therefore it seems like there is a whole heap of problems that need addressing, but arguably, more important than other factor is the need for time.
Bruce needs time to make his own mark on the side and his new signings are a good way for that to start. Time must be given for the team to gel and whilst promotion is a long distant dream this year, Villa need to rebuild and their 33/1 odds for relegation highlight that it should be highly unlikely that they become entangled in a relegation dogfight.
Xia seems committed to Villa and Bruce has called this the biggest job of his career. A team who have been in constant flux since Sherwood’s dismissal, the time has come for a sedate calmness to descend over Villa to give Bruce and his newfangled squad a chance to rebuild and gear up for a massive 2017-18 season where they must return to where they belong; the Premier League.
