It may well be the time for the club to be razed to the ground, and arise like a phoenix from the flames. Why? After the release of twelve players, and the rumoured impending sales of Carlos Cuellar and Emile Heskey, Villa are in a position where one of two stark options will occur. Either the club will reinvent itself as a force in the league, or it will slump into mediocrity or worse.

Ultimately, a large portion of what happens next will be down to the investment of the owner into the football club. With players sales alone already totaling nearly £40m, there must be a strong argument to say that money will be reinvested.

After all, if it isn’t then Villa will be further weakened from a team that was hardly bulging in depth over the course of the past few years.

Wages need to come down but…

As we are all fully aware, the club has had issues with a bloated wage bill that is currently being brought under control. The sales and releases of numerous players will have gone some way towards balancing things out, but there is an underlying issue that needs to have the slack taken up in the mean time. It is obviously positive cutting wage bills to ensure cash flow is better, but Villa can’t operate with a squad of purely youngsters.

There is little doubt that they youth at the club have bags of potential, but that is all they currently do have – potential. Few would argue that players such as Delph, Albrighton, and Bannan have a great future ahead of them, but do they have what it takes to fill every slot in the team? I personally have my reservations. Some of the slots, sure. All of them? No chance.

As I have mentioned numerous times prior to today, Aston Villa are in desperate need of a spine to their team. With a year passed of underachievement, and points of failure being far too abundant, Villa need two things – firstly, a dedicated first XI and secondly, some squad depth.

It makes me feel confounded that we should even be talking about having to establish a first XI in a Premier League team that finished sixth three years in a row. How is it that Villa can spend £140m+ in four years and yet, when looking with an objective view at the squad, be missing so many leaders, dare I say so many professionals, in the squad? Surely with that kind of expenditure, you would imagine that we would already have either solid players, or an abundance of Premier League footballers to choose from.

Strangely, we have neither in reality. Whilst we released ten players at the close season, and sold Ashley Young as well as Stewart Downing this summer, even the squad is lacking. Lacking in numbers, and lacking in quality. The £36m that we gathered from the sales of Messrs Downing and Young could, realistically, buy us four players who are going to walk into the first team. Yes, we could purchase a lot of potential with the money but if we do, what signal does that send out to the youngsters? The wrong ones, obviously. Villa need experience, and experience isn’t cheap.

We’ve already been linked with, and are likely to sign, Shay Given. Beyond that the purchases of Scott Parker and Charles N’Zogbia will take the spend to over £20m and the reality is that, of the three, only one of those players is a long term solution. That in itself leaves £16m to go and buy another player.

Where do we begin?

The main question is beyond those three, just exactly where do Aston Villa look to strengthen. There is a plausible argument for pretty much every position in the squad needing strengthening, and thus we could begin in any position.

However, and if Carlos Cuellar is indeed sold, I think our priority beyond the aforementioned three players is a centre half. Whilst there is some logic to say that Dunne and Collins may come back to form next season, it is by no means guaranteed.

After a poor year that was no doubt heightened by a midfield crisis or two, the stark reality is that beyond Dunne and Collins, and with the sale of Cuellar, Villa have only Ciaran Clark as a recognised centre half in the first team. It is hardly squad depth, and it certainly doesn’t offer much competition if form suffers for Dunne or Collins.

So the reality is that the majority of that £16m remaining from the money we know we do have needs to be piled into a long term, high quality centre half. For me, the answer is Chris Samba, assuming at least we can grab him before a top team does. I think if we act quickly, we can get there before others but it needs to be done this month so they can bed into the squad.

Of course, the optimist in me, and from I know about the club, makes me think that we have more than just the £36m to spend on reinforcements.

Why? Well it doesn’t take an expert football analyst to look at the club’s current roster and see that we have serious spaces that need to be filled in.

Expecting some of the spaces to be filled by youth is a prudent, if somewhat risky, choice. However, to expect all of the positions to be filled with players who only have potential rather than experience, could be seen as financial and football suicide for the club.

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