Columns by professional writers
Villa managed to record a vital, but costly, away win at Turf Moor on New Year’s Day, outlasting Burnley 1-2. The match was notable not only for getting us back out of the drop zone and seeing a new formation from Dean Smith, but also sadly for season-ending injuries to Wesley and Tom Heaton. What already looked to be an extremely important window suddenly became even more so.
None of us have a backdoor into the thinking of Sawiris and Edens. Of course they want to stay in the Premier League but even at almost $200,000,000 spent on players, they don’t seem to be any closer to a cohesive unit that will stay up as they did at the start of the season even though they showed some promise last August. How are they thinking over the Xmas season? Are they true fans of the sport? Are they looking at the team from a purely financial view? What is their timeline for success in the Premier League?
Nothing’s easy in the Premier League, as we saw at Molineux. Though Villa sit about where we might expect, we’ve left points on the pitch and things remain fairly tight outside the top end of the table. What do Villa need to do better in the upcoming run of matches?
From VAR to midfield woes, a collection of random, and none-too-brilliant insights after Villa’s first four matches back in the top flight.
The extreme summer makeover, as we also all know, was going to happen whether we were promoted or not. The only difference is that promotion meant we had a lot more money to spend. The real question will be whether—after all that spending—we can score enough.
