Before a ball was kicked, Villa fans dared to dream of winning some silverware (after all, Aston Villa was among the favourites to win the Europa League) and once again achieve entry into the Champions League. The hugely costly error by Thomas Bramall at Old Trafford on the final day of last season, just a couple of months before, remained extremely raw.
Pre-season looked promising but the early competitive games did not. After 5 league fixtures, Villa had only collected 3 points, scored 1 goal and sat in a relegation position. They had also been dumped out of the Carabao Cup by Brentford. Ezri Konsa has since revealed that Emery called a team meeting and told the players he was worried. Whatever was discussed at that meeting, the outcome was stunning. After 18 league games Villa had amassed 39 points and sat 3rd in the table meaning 36 points taken from a maximum of 39 available. It was a three-horse race for the title.
Then Palhinha tackled Kamara across his knees at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium to end his season. Lengthy injuries quickly followed to Tielemans and SJM, which wiped out the Villa engine room. The last 20 league games realized just 26 points and without the final two spectacular wins against Liverpool and Man City, Villa would have finished 5th on 59 points but still qualified for Champions League duty. Instead, the 65 points gained rendered 4th place and compares to 66 points gained last season when finishing 6th and 68 points gained the season before that when finishing in 4th place. Despite a significant drop-off in form over the 2nd half of the season owing to these injuries, Villa only dropped 1 place in the table. Highly commendable in the circumstances.
Breaking down where the points were gained and lost makes interesting reading. Villa collected 32 points from teams that finished in the top half (9 teams). But only 33 points were collected from teams that finished in the bottom half (10 teams). Since the top-half teams tended to attack more and the bottom-half teams tended to deploy low blocks more, Villa did much better against the top teams than they did against the lower teams. Something for the coaching staff to work on which I’m sure they will.
Have to say here that Villa played more long balls from the back this season with some success. Only Brentford took 6 points from Villa. Against each of the other top half opponents Villa collected at least 3 points with maximum 6 points gained against Man City and Brighton. Against the bottom-half teams, Villa only collected 1 point from Palace and from Everton and maximum points only from West Ham. Guardiola stated earlier in the season that Villa are a Champions League team. Emery has stated that he needs to keep finding new ways of tackling EPL teams because they adjust formations and personnel accordingly. The increased long balls from the back suggests one of the solutions, not to mention corner routines. Judging by results, he’s done a fantastic job.
The FA Cup draws were not kind to Villa handing out Spurs followed by Newcastle and competing in that competition proved too much given the injuries incurred. However, Villa just about maxed out the prize money from its Europa League games winning 13 of the 15 games played and going all the way to glory with a memorable night in Istanbul established in Villa folklore. Don’t let anyone tell you that the competition is easier without the Champions League qualifying failures dropping into it. The trophy was still won with Porto, Real Betis, Lille, Roma, Stuttgart and Feyenoord competing for it and these teams are among those competing in next season’s Champions League phase.
That Aston Villa was able to sustain a top-4 Premier League challenge as well as winning a European trophy is remarkable. Chelsea, Newcastle, Palace, Forest, and Spurs could not do it. The EPL season just ended was extremely competitive with points hard to gain. Given the constraints against Villa of PSR/SCR regulations, it has been nothing short of outstanding.
Best memories over the stretch will of course vary from person to person. No 1 highlight for me was lifting the silverware in Istanbul. But there were plenty of other memories. The 2 goals just before HT in that final were fit to win any cup. Bizot’s save from Reijnders in the last game is fresh in the memory. So too is Emi’s save against Sunderland when the score was 3-3, then the almost immediate winner from Tammy. Buendia’s last-second winner against Arsenal detonated the ground and set the sirens wailing. The atmosphere during the second leg against Forest and SJM’s two corkers in the same game. Ollie scored some fabulous goals and bagged over 20 in total for the season. And who could forget Rogers’ knuckle-ball free kick into the net. Buendia showing in a later game that he could do the same. There were many others.
In 3 completed seasons, Emery has moved Villa up to 17th place in UEFA’s coefficient table from zero and will start next season in 12th place as teams above have to discard points from 5 years ago. Why does this matter? It increases the prize money gained from UEFA’s Value Pillar. The future is bright, it’s claret and blue.
Season Reflections 2025-26
Missed the game last night but not surprised by the result. That’s 5 European finals for the Arse and 5 losses. It will be Villa v PSG then on Weds 12th August for the Super Cup at Salzburg in Austria 8pm KO.
About what you’d expect. The early goal obvs set the dynamic for the rest of the match, which was a shame. The Arse are solid defensively. But it led to a great gut punch at the end.
Can’t believe we have to play that match in just under 10 weeks.
The second leg with Forest…I was reading a longer set of comments from Rogers (Athletic, I think), and he was saying that’s the best they’d played all year to that point. Glad to find I wasn’t imagining it.
Yep, the last 5 games of the season (Forest through Citeh). Goals scored 15, goals conceded 5, 4 big wins and a draw. No comparison with the first 5 games of the season eh?
Both Rogers and Buendia have said, I think Ollie, too, how much trust Emery puts in them, but how you have to earn it. Sounds like players appreciate the dynamic, how he’ll stick with you to come into form and let you play your game as long as you understand what he wants.
It’ll be interesting to see how much change there is this summer. I don’t see the point in selling Rogers just to gamble on 2 or 3 Diabys. But I don’t know if the finances dictate that we have to sell someone big even if we don’t sign anyone after that.
I’d like to see us able to put out 3 genuine forwards in every lineup next season. I think Emery has worked wonders when you remember that he had to sell Ramsey to get Guessand, ended up with basically only Rogers and Watkins as the attackers that he trusted, and Watkins was “playing with a blindfold” until March. Quite often we had Buendia/McGinn/Youri/Barkley as a “half” midfielder half number 10.
To churn a trophy and 4th place out of that is remarkable
So what’s Emery’s objective for next year? Win the Prem league or the eurocrap cup? Would it be facetious to suggest that winning the eurocrap would be easier than winning the prem? Selling Rogers might get in 2 or 3 quality squad players to help with the nearly 60 game grind on the way to a eurocrap walkover. If we do what clickbait demands, we sell Rogers to the favoured sky 6 and surrender the prem to one of those spoilt brats.
I hope that I have given some teasing clues about my preference. DON’T SELL THE CROWN JEWELLS!
Percy in the Torygraph (he’s usually accurate on Villa matters) reporting that Villa have no intention of selling Rogers to anyone.
I’ll have to trust Unai on player trades 656. Personally, I’d much prefer to keep Rogers than see him go to the Arse. But then again, I was gutted when Big Jhon left but see he hasn’t even made the Columbia world cup squad.
Meanwhile, Guessand is returning to Villa according to the Laandaan Evening Standard.
https://www.standard.co.uk/sport/football/crystal-palace-transfer-news-guessand-b1284376.html
If Rogers goes, obviously has to be big money. Can we strike gold twice with a replacement? Somehow we seem to have more trouble than Brighton or Bournemouth.
Otherwise, we’d be buying him or someone of the same price if we could spend, so…
I want to keep him, but if he funded three players, well, we do need bolstering but they have to be instant impact. Glad I’m not the one making the decisions.
Yeah that really is the key point. Sell Rogers or not, the signings have to be banging down the door for the first 11. We can’t afford a summer of Garcias, Malens, Elliots, Allysons or Abrahams if we want to be top 6 and knockouts of the Champions League.
News today that Emery doesn’t consider us to have replaced Ramsey, he wants a fast right winger, he wants new left backs, Garcia is gone-zo, is Nedalkovic still alive? How many windows of transfers do we need to repair?
Again for me, it’s proof that Emery is the gold dust at the club, more than any of our brilliant players.
If we could do a raid on newcastle, Barnes or Ramsey?
I’d love to have JJ back, but I guess that would screw with the finances for UEFA. Barnes is the type of player we need but he’s a sicknote, we can’t afford anymore of those. I’d rather keep Rogers than sell him and gamble on a couple of £50mil names.
If Emery thinks he hasn’t replaced Ramsey yet, his need in midfield is urgent. He plugged the gap with Dougie in January but he’s now gone. If he sells Rogers, we’ll be two short in midfield. And he still needs a speedy winger and RB cover.
Just a training session from England this evening. My take aways from the game were:
1) Gordon looked sluggish. If I’m a Barca fan I’d be questioning why they paid 70 million quid for him. Guess being on the bench for the Wai Ayes the last 3 or 4 games has left him rusty.
2) Ngumoha looked lively on the RW. The Kiwi LB pretty much matched his pace though and impressed me.
3) Don’t think any of our WC opponents will be quaking in their boots.