Aston Villa are currently struggling at the wrong end of the Premier League table.
The Villans currently find themselves in 19th place in the division, still two points off survival. They have won just seven of their 27 matches so far this campaign and, although they are in possession of a game in hand, they are still in deep trouble at the wrong end of the table.
That isn’t exactly what the Villa owners Nassef Sawiris and Wes Edens will have had in mind when they went on a spending spree during the summer transfer window.
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They parted with £133.74m and made 12 new signings, hoping that would be enough to keep them in the top flight. However, it has done anything but – Dean Smith’s side have often lacked cohesion, which is partly to blame for their struggles.
The two owners have now purchased Villa Park from the club, following a nine-month investigation as they originally planned to do so last May. Even with the £56m sale of the famous old ground, they still made a loss for the 2018/19 campaign of £69m – that leaves them with another year of struggling to comply with sustainability and profit rules.
Of course, the heavy spending in the summer does not count as part of that loss, but it makes being in the Premier League an absolute necessity, and not just from a sporting point of view. The discrepancy in funds between the top tier and the Championship is massive, as we well know – it is why the playoff final is called the richest game in football.
One season of Premier League football is unlikely to be able to cover the huge amounts of cash they have spent this season. The sale of Villa Park may have been seen as foresight by the owners at the time, with them knowing they would spend so much in the summer, but parting with the fees they did for so many players may have in itself been a failure to look at the bigger picture.
The investment has been a hindrance, when Sheffield United, for example, spent just £42.75m and are in eighth.
Meanwhile, this Villa man’s impending return can help rejuvenate Smith’s side.