Over the last 4 years (2019-2023), only 6 clubs have raised more money from academy sales than Villa’s €188m, up from €15m in the previous 4.
While a large portion of this comes from the sale of Grealish, it highlights NSWE’s commitment to the academy since their takeover.
Aston Villa have the 19th most profitable academy in the world over the last decade and the 4th highest in England.
€203m raised from graduates is more than the likes of Liverpool, Barcelona, Arsenal, and Manchester United in that time period.
@MarkOldacres The ratio is really worrying, I get that people don’t want to hear negativity around the new era of their club but certain things trump football
@Latcollins1978 Lots of my issues with the club recruitment and project wise over the past few years have been Purslow. His ranking above the Director of Football, lack of Talent ID, and over-controlling nature have been behind lots of our failed signings since promotion. Gerrard hire too.
@EM1_Szn I’m mostly pretty mainstream with my wants this window: Medina/Torres, Vanderson/KWP, would love to take a gamble on Cole Palmer… to give you a Norwegian - why not Andreas Schjelderup?
@j_macgeever That’s the basic point of this. The number of points we’ve picked up under Emery has us as the 3rd best team in the league which we clearly aren’t. That’s unsustainable form.
While we all love to see the wins rolling in (long may it continue), I don’t think a reasonable, unbiased argument can be made that we’ve REALLY become the 3rd best team in the league overnight.
We might be better than we were, but not THIS good.
Firstly, a comment on what “unsustainable” really means: it’s that based on the chances we’re creating and conceding, you wouldn’t expect us to be picking up as many points as we are right now.
Villa have picked up the 3rd most points in the league since Emery took over.
Despite a mostly disappointing game, we showed great character to respond in the second half and play ourselves back into the game - we were the better side in spells.
We also did create quite a number of chances (1.3 xG) vs an excellent Liverpool defence.
Firstly, we need to remember that was our first game in months vs an elite Liverpool side who had their reunion a few days prior.
It’s also early days under a new coach and we were without a number of key players (Ramsey, Martinez, Carlos, Cash all unavailable).