Persepctive. One simple word that, in the midst of Aston Villa’s current angst-filled season, can easily be forgotten. Whilst the club are undoubtedly deep in a battle at the wrong end of the table, perspective may well give some form of reference point for those who think Villa are in the worst possible situation they could be.
A few short years ago, the club’s gamble on the Champions League went wrong. Shortly after, Villa’s manager of four seasons Martin O’Neill left the club initiating a period of financial austerity. Of the managers that have followed after O’Neill’s departure, none of them have managed to provide any kind of success for the club given the financial restraints that have been imposed by the club’s regularly silent chairman, Randy Lerner.
The perceived reticence for Lerner to get the chequebook out and solve Villa’s problems is regularly seen as a source of anger for fans. This season, as Paul Lambert’s team have fallen into the bottom three following a 1-0 loss to Southampton, much of the focus has shifted to how the club need to spend money in order to pull themselves out of a massive slump in recent times.
That Villa are in the bottom three is, of course, a cause for concern and upset. No team wants to be battling at the wrong end of the table, especially a team who have had a rich and illustrious history encompassing titles, cups, and many high points.
However, when Villa are viewed in the context of other clubs that have had major financial issues in recent times – Leeds United and Portsmouth for example – the club from Birmingham have gotten off fairly lightly.
In fact, some could argue that the fact that Villa have still not been relegated, despite austerity measures being implemented, despite the sale of many of their best players, and despite the inadequacies of players supplied by the club’s academy, is nothing short of a miracle.
The reality is that Villa have been living on borrowed time ever since O’Neill walked out of the club days before the season was about to kick off. In the time that has followed, austerity has appeared to have become the prime focus for the club ahead of all other targets – league positioning seems an almost secondary concern when contrasted with balancing the books.
The aforementioned financial crises Leeds and Portsmouth suffered had far worse of an impact, and meant more sudden declines than that of Villa. Leeds in particular, a team that were similar in terms of ground size and the honours they were chasing at their peak, suffered multiple relegations, facing the ignominy of sinking as low as League One.
Nowadays, Leeds play in the Championship but the road to their current position – still in the second tier of English football – has been far from straight-forward. So, when Villa fans contemplate just how bad the club’s luck appears to have been in terms of this season under Paul Lambert, the greater context needs to be viewed.
Just as a person who has a massive heart attack can choose to have their life evaluated in the wake of substantial trauma so, I had hoped, Villa fans could realise that the club has had, comparatively speaking, some major achievements in survival.
Perhaps the history of Villa’s past will overshadow things though supporters have admittedly lowered their sights from the loftier ambitions of a short five years ago. However, that Villa’s target appears to still be that of mid-table in terms of the club’s ambitions seems almost hopelessly disconnected from the environment that Lerner has tried to establish for the team in recent years.
The truth of the matter is that Villa resemble a shell of an organisation living on limited life support. That they continue to peddle their erratic style of football in the Premier League is, considering the environment the club’s staff operate under, miraculous as previously stated.
Realising this in itself may well allow fans to have the benefit of hindsight when viewing the tenures of managers who were hounded out in varying degrees of anger over the past few years. Gerard Houllier had perhaps the strongest squad of the past three full-time Villa managers and, maybe unsurprisingly, is almost certainly likely to have finished in the highest position.
Alex McLeish, with his negative, defensively focused football did, at least, manage to “make do” with the remnants of a team that was two games from finishing closer to sixteenth than sixth the season before he arrived. Whether fans liked or disliked McLeish’s particular style of football, his persona, or any other facet of his short time at the club, he provided safety, and did so with a negative transfer spend and the loss of both Ashley Young & Stewart Downing.
This season, Paul Lambert has been tasked with another radical change of direction for the club. In truth, the present manager’s ability to deal with some of the core issues at the club – a distinct lack of experience – is severely reduced because of the governance of the club’s board. When asked regarding the recruitment of players in January’s transfer window, one of Lambert’s first statements made the point of finances being at the forefront of any decision that could be made.
That austerity continues to bite into the club makes managing Villa an unenviable task. Whilst Lambert has been afforded more funds to boost the squad than his predecessor McLeish, Villa’s necessity to buy players in bulk to simply provide squad depth has meant Lambert hasn’t been able to strengthen much in real terms. Some suggest that other managers could do better, but the harsh truth is who in their right mind would walk into the club if the current manager was ousted? This in itself paints a fairly miserable reality of how far the club have fallen since austerity kicked in.
Villa’s situation has been compounded by the loss of Ron Vlaar to injury in recent times, by the loss of Karim El-Ahmadi to the African Cup of Nations, and by a necessity of relying on the club’s youth. Given those circumstances, slipping into the bottom three has been far from a surprise for many.
What will be surprising is if the January window closes with only inexperienced and/or cheap players brought in. Few can doubt that Lambert’s focus on building a younger, fresher Villa side is ambitious, but survival must be seen as a necessity, if only to validate the owner’s own mentality. On a personal note, I think the “lack of money” is a bit of a bluff to maximise value when we buy – I sincerely hope I’m not wrong.
Whatever happens, Lerner must comprehend that gambling with relegation – a result that would result in over £70m worth of lost revenue given the improved TV rights next season – is very dangerous indeed. That many of the club’s high earners have no clauses in their contract stipulating that their wages will drop if Villa go down is of even more concern as the eight or so well paid players could be taking hundreds of thousands of pounds a week out of a vastly reduced turnover figure for the 2013/14 season – a figure that would gobble up all of Villa’s potential parachute payment for the year and more.
The worrying thing for fans is that lessons don’t seem to have been learned by the board, with the club’s top level plan appearing broken and fragmented. That anger is falling on yet another manager’s head seems to be a yearly occurrence, but one that seems to show no sign of being changed any time soon.
If there is one positive for the manager it is that the owner may well be forced to keep him regardless of what happens. If Lambert manages to stop the rot and keep Villa up this season, more funds will mean more reinforcements. If he doesn’t, Lerner must take some responsibility for the austere environment that has seemingly turned one of the country’s brightest managerial prospects into a man leading a bigger club to a lower league position.
Will Villa survive another season? The cards are yet to be dealt out, but Paul Lambert must be hoping that austerity ends in May if the club do secure their place in next year’s Premier League campaign. If not, Villa may well face yet another season of anguish.
Saving money is good for the club, but saving comparative pennies to lose next season’s TV windfall might well be where Villa’s financial trajectory aligns with the likes of Leeds. For the sake of our loyal fans, I sincerely hope things change and quickly.
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