Aston Villa, the problem of staying up and of entering the top six.

by Tony Attwood

As you will know, if you are a regular student of all things Untold, in the run up to the start of this season we ran a series celebrating 100 years of Arsenal in the top division, recording in detail how Arsenal were promoted in 1919, and dealing with the rumours that then started to circulate from that set of events.

If you missed it, you can read about this vital time in Arsenal’s history here.

Looking now at Villa’s recent history, from 1992/3 when Aston Villa were part of the first ever Premier League season – and came runners’ up, to 2015/16 when they were relegated they have had modest success.  They won the League Cup in 1994 and 1996 and the Intertoto Cup in 2002 and 2009, and that was about it in terms of winning.

They were runners up again in 1993, and made it to fourth one year, but otherwise they have not really challenged.  In 2015 they did make it to the FA Cup Final, and were utterly slaughtered by Arsenal 4-0 in what was the most enjoyable event at Wembley I have ever been to.

And yet their trophy cabinet has boasted quite a few bits of silverware of the centuries: they have been League champions seven times, FA Cup winners seven times, League Cup winners five times, and they once won the European Cup.   But it was all a bit of while ago.  Their last league title was 1981, and the league trophy before that was winning the Third Division in 1972.

In terms of history it is a bit of a nightmare.

Part of Villa’s problem in recent times, it seems to me (and of course I am an outsider whom I am sure Villa supporters would claim knows nothing of the club) has been that of ownership.  While I am very sad at the way Arsenal’s ownership has moved across the last 100 years from a policy of a club owned by its fans to a policy of a club owned by one man, Villa has moved differently – but they have ended up with the same problem as Arsenal has: one or two very rich people with no historic interest in the club or in football, running the show.

In the summer of 2006, Randy Lerner, owner of the Cleveland Browns, bought a majority of Aston Villa for £62.6m.  He then put up the club for sale in May 2014 for £200m.   However no one wanted it, and eventually Xia Jiantong bought it in June 2016 for £76 million.  The new owner was duly approved by the League as being very fit and very proper.

However by 2017/18 it was clear that the club was in financial trouble and in July 2018 NSWE group, owned by an Egyptian billionaire and an American billionaire bought the club and as we know promotion was achieved in 2018/19 through the playoffs.

Now the question is, of course, what next?  Do the owners see Villa as a team just surviving in the Premier League, or moving up to the upper reaches of the League, or even challenging the six teams that have dominated the European positions in the past three seasons?

The problem of course is that the next jump upwards, to regular mid-table security, is one that is going to cost a lot of money, but brings with it nothing but mid-table security.  No silverware, no Europe, and the top six moving further and further out of sight.

Last season the gap between the 6th and 7th clubs was nine points.  In 2018 it was nine points.  In 2017 it was eight points.  Worse, for the teams and their owners that have aspirations, the three clubs that have ended up seventh across these three years (Everton, Burnley and Wolverhampton) have not been able to “push on” and break into the top six – at least not yet.

True, sometimes in the recent past the outlying teams have been able to push into the top six – Liverpool slipped to 8th in 2016, while Chelsea were 10th, leaving Leicester free to win the league, but after that one season, Leicester seem to have slipped back.

Prior to that in 2013 Everton slipped into the top six while no one was watching, and indeed stayed in the top six for two years while first Liverpool and then Manchester United very obligingly slipped to 7th, but that was it, after that we were back to the top six.

But I wonder, do these billionaire owners really think that they, as successful business beings, simply know how to do it and can bring their modern methods into old-time football and break into the European slots where others have failed?  That seems to be the modus operandi.

Indeed what is remarkable about the current era is not just that more and more money has poured into the league either from very rich men or from whole countries, but that we have a top six that looks more solid and stable than has ever been the case before.

Arsenal has been top six since 1995/6.  I am not sure if any club has had a longer run in the top six at any time in the history of the league – at least since the first world war.  If you know or can work it out, do write in and let me know; I genuinely want to know.  But my review of the history books makes me think this is a record.

If we look back to the top six in 1995/6 we see a much changed final table…

	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
1	Manchester United	38	25	7	6	73	35	38	82
2	Newcastle United	38	24	6	8	66	37	29	78
3	Liverpool	38	20	11	7	70	34	36	71
4	Aston Villa	38	18	9	11	52	35	17	63
5	Arsenal	38	17	12	9	49	32	17	63
6	Everton	38	17	10	11	64	44	20	61

And sitting there in 4th is Aston Villa, one of three teams no longer considered to be top six.   Liverpool dropped out in 2013, and Manchester United dropped out in 2014.

I know of course fourth, fifth and sixth positions are not trophies, but just staying in the top six (something we have taken for granted at Arsenal for the last 23 seasons) is not as common as you might think.

I wonder, do Villa’s owners think that they can push one of the present group of six, out?