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EPL: Aston Villa fading away slowly and steadily into relegation

By Edgar Acero

MANCHESTER, ENGLAND - MARCH 05: Ashley Westwood of Aston Villa reacts after Manchester City's fourth goal during the Barclays Premier League match between Manchester City and Aston Villa at Etihad Stadium on March 5, 2016 in Manchester, England. (Photo by Alex Livesey/Getty Images)
MANCHESTER, ENGLAND - MARCH 05: Ashley Westwood of Aston Villa reacts after Manchester City's fourth goal during the Barclays Premier League match between Manchester City and Aston Villa at Etihad Stadium on March 5, 2016 in Manchester, England. (Photo by Alex Livesey/Getty Images) /
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Poor play and a run of bad executive decisions have doomed Aston Villa, who are helplessly heading to a certain relegation.

“From European nights to relegation fights.”

That’s the chant heard at Villa Park these days. A song with a pointed angry message: “We want Lerner out.”

The call is for the ousting of Aston Villa’s American owner Randolph “Randy” Lerner, who took over the club in 2006, back when they were still consistently fighting for a spot in European competitions.

Lerner’s arrival to the club was supposed to provide the kind of success Chelsea saw under Roman Abramovich, or that Manchester City is enjoying under the Abu Dhabi United Group. Instead, what occurred was exactly the opposite as disenchanted Villa fans are now seeing their club crumble before their very eyes. With only three wins this season, Aston Villa is, slowly but surely, heading into relegation.

Villa manager Remi Garde, who replaced Tim Sherwood in October when the team was already at the bottom of the table, has been unable to right the sinking ship. In fact, the team has taken a turn for the worse as they’ve been outscored 15-2 in their last four games, including a 4-0 thrashing at the hands of Manchester City last Saturday.

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It mattered very little that they lined up a formation with five defenders, including the likes of Micah Richards and Joleon Lescott, and American goalkeeper Brad Guzan. They still got demolished.

Still, it’s hardly Garde’s fault. The French coach, who most likely will leave after this season, walked into a difficult and dysfunctional situation at the club, just as his predecessors. Villa has changed managers a total of five times since Martin O’Neal’s departure in 2010, a season they finished in sixth place. Since then, the team’s demise has been gradual, finishing in 16th place in 2012, 15th in 2013 and in 2014, and barely avoiding relegation last season (finished 17th).

Much of the problem can be pointed to disastrous decisions by the team’s top executives, who have been running the team more like a business than an actual soccer club. Clear evidence of it was given by chief executive Tom Fox, who said this to the BBC on Dec. 17:

“We live and die by the results. But I look at everything,” Tom Fox, Aston Villa Chief Executive

“It’s easy to look just at the table. It’s clearly not where we want to be and it’s not good enough. We live and die by the results. But I look at everything. We’ve generated more revenue on both our shirt and kit deals and in our ability to control costs. We’re making progress there and I am really pleased with that.”

While revenue is important for any business, it’s also about the last thing fans care for when the club is on the verge of being relegated for the first time in history, and surely the message was received poorly by the Villa faithful. They’d pay more attention to Garde, who said he wasn’t given enough transfer funds to sign target players in the January transfer window.

“As a new manager I would have expected new faces to support my change,” he said in February. “We missed these targets.”

These types of complaints are not new to Villa fans, who have gotten used to bad footballing decisions by Fox and by sporting director Henrik Almatadt, both of whom are supported by Lerner. Among their failures is their handling of the transfer market, where they allowed players like Ashley Young, James Milner and Gary Cahill to leave the club. More recently they were also unable or unwilling to keep Christian Benteke, Fabian Delph and Ron Vlaar.

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And so, Villa are left looking for a miracle. They have nine games to go in the Premier League this season, including visits from Tottenham and Chelsea and away matches against Arsenal and Manchester United. Life in the Championship is all but certain for a team that was once a prestigious European competitor and a Premier League champion.

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