Classic Villa behaviour this.. go 1 up playing good football with focus, then act all nonchalant and think theyโre cock of the walk and get pressured.. #avfc
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@nicknackjames1 I think youโre 100% correct mate. He is showing signs of being so much more advanced in his skill and player intellect than others, like JJ
Nobody at Villa Park will pretend this rebuild was the plan back in May. But in football you cannot always decide what happens and a rebuild, at a pace that was not expected, eventually became the plan.
Everyone knows of the financial pressure, with UEFAโs oversight hanging over every decision the club made this summer. Morgan Rogersโ departure helped balance the books and freed room to address squad needs.
Then two release clauses landed that nobody had budgeted for, Digne and Tielemansโ, forcing the plan to change again. Onana got injured long term, so he would miss most of the season where, by all accounts, he was going to fly and govern the midfield.
Then Emi Martinez wanted out, like in previous summers, and tried it every way he could. Add a squad whose average age was pushing 29, and the club faced a choice: patch the cracks or start a real generational turnover.
Imagine the long meetings, the long discussions, all the possibilities on the table. But clearly a new path had to be taken, one that accelerated out of anyoneโs control. It happens.
Almost a dozen new faces later, and letโs see what happens today, this is a different Villa. Younger, leaner on the balance sheet, built in a shape and with names and positions chosen with Emeryโs blessing, now everyone is determined to start a new cycle rather than defend the old one.
The financial side of this rebuild has gone about as well as it could, with sales of players in their thirties fetching prices well above expectation.
The football side has to be more honest: losing that experience for extraordinary fees is good business, but it leaves gaps a young squad canโt fill by talent alone.
Players are not yet a team, and thereโs an acknowledgment inside the club that another experienced body or two would have helped soften the transition. But once a player has decided heโs done what he came to do, thereโs little a club can do beyond protecting the valuation.
Thatโs the job now, and it will take patience, both from the coaching staff working with young talent and from the club itself. From the fans. That is what it is being asked of you.
Do you want new memories, a new trip around the demands of the Premier League while players develop their football and personalties?
Emery has rebuilt cycles before, at Valencia, at Sevilla. He knows what this looks like in year one. The timing is brutal, a new-look squad thrown straight into the Premier League with barely a pre-season together, but the people building this are the same people who got Villa to a Europa League final.
Who knows what will happen. But donโt you want to be part of what happens next? Then, I would say, help this team reach the best they can give.