One of the biggest talking points so far this Summer has been how much Aston Villa have spent so far in this transfer window.
So far, Dean Smith has splashed out over £100 million on bringing in talent to Villa, breaking the bank to bring in talent to his playoff winning squad.
However, this big-spending has led many people to simply say that Villa are “doing a Fulham”, the new catchall term for a newly promoted team spending big and going straight back down.
The Whites splashed out on players such as Aleksander Mitrovic and Jean Michaël Seri, but struggled in the Premier League.
However, for those in the know about Villa’s problems this summer, it is very easy to see how they’re not doing the same thing.
On paper, Villa’s squad shouldn’t have gotten promoted last season. They struggled defensively practically all season, and their goalkeeping situation never helped them at all.
Dean Smith helped to revitalise the squad after Steve Bruce’s reign came to a disappointing end, but promotion heaped a whole load of problems onto the former Brentford boss.
Star Tammy Abraham was returning to Chelsea, along with several other loanees. At the back, Villa were lacking in both quality and depth, whilst the goalkeeping situation still had problems.
Therefore, they needed signings, and it is exactly what they did.
Smith knew he needed to keep some of the core together, so the signings of Anwar El Ghazi and Tyrone Mings were almost no brainers.
Wesley was brought in to help with Villa’s lack of Tammy Abraham this season, whilst Tom Heaton comes in to become Villa’s number one goalkeeper.
The fees are high for these new signings, yes, but Villa simply had to bring them in else relegation would almost be a certainty.
Villa have filled gaps in their side, and still have players that kept them up firmly in the setup, something that needed to be done.
There are concerns still with Villa. The defence is still very fresh and new to the club, meaning it may take time for them to gel together correctly, something that happened to Fulham last season.
The Whites signed a lot of players, and didn’t really stick to the core that got them up in the first place. When the new players failed to make an impact, player’s like Tom Cairney and Ryan Sessegnon failed to do much at all.
Villa have to be careful, but with a strong core in Jack Grealish and John McGinn, they certainly have something to fall back on.
But looking at it now, it’s very obvious that they’re not ‘doing a Fulham’, and most fans will be hoping that Villa’s fate is better than the one that befell the team that beat them at Wembley two years ago.
