After a poor start to the 2025/26 campaign following our difficult summer, manager Unai Emery made a few tweaks and got his Aston Villa side firing again just as the vast majority of Villans had expected, but despite the fact that we could be on for another great season in B6, we can expect another summer of nonsense from the press – and they have already started.
Having had a surprising, but futile, dalliance with this years’ title normality was restored as our form fell of a cliff with a number of serious injuries hitting our midfield in particular. But despite that falling form, we are yet to slip from fourth place in the Premier League table and we maintain a five point gap over Liverpool and the nearest chasers.
The domestic Cups again left a lot to be desired sadly but for fans who use RightBet that was probably predictable after the last few seasons, but the trade off was we continue to go great guns in European competition and the hopes of lifting the Europa League trophy are alive and well.
We already have a 3-1 advantage over Italian Serie A side Bologna in the quarter final double header, and that impressive scoreline was achieved despite being mostly pants for 89 minutes again – but unlike some favoured sides, at least we can admit it and do not blame the unfairness of a feather blowing a 1000 miles away – or even a side putting in a good performance when we did not expect them to…looking at you Mr Slot.
The season will take care of itself, and hopefully it will finally end with a return to a trophy, the Champions League and maybe even a transfer strategy – but until then, the transfer window speculation rumour mill will continue to produce toilet roll.
The latest being that having now started to see far better consistency from £50 million signing Amadou Onana, we are now entertaining the idea of selling the Belgian international defensive midfielder, and replacing him yet another player who cannot hack it at the Theatre of Streams in the shape of Manuel Ugarte.
The story is typical internet guff and begins with a source who is more distant from the club than a season ticket holder who has shuffled their mortal coil and very predictably hinges on the tired and old ‘we must sell for Profit and Sustainability Rules’ reasons which pays no attention to recent accounts or even the fact that PSR has long not been a problem, we have an issue with the laughable Squad Cost Ratio arrangements.
It also pays no attention to growing year on year revenues, European finishes and European competition involvement either, let alone the myriad of other financial benefits that exist outside of ‘must sell a player’. No, we keep getting insight levels akin to Homer Simpson discovering donuts for the first time.
Naturally, Onana is picked out here owing to his previous interview where he had the temerity to suggest he would one day like to play for the likes of Barcelona or Real Madrid at some undetermined point in his future career – and frankly that is probably all you need to know about the veracity of these ‘reports’ and their ‘sources’, particularly as they add Old ‘Pay For Your Own BBQ’ Trafford in as one of the world class clubs Onana was thinking about.
The problem is this guff and creative writing will be repeated as fact by fellow no nothing’s, whip up a frenzy and then they’ll justify it when he does in fact move on at some point in the next century.
