Aston Villa map, key points 2006 - onwards

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Slideshow of the Lerner regime

The last two and a half years


Over the past two years or so, there have been massive changes at Aston Villa. With only five first team players from the pre Martin O’Neill era still on the books, Villa have a really different look about them these days.

Aston Villa were at an ultimate low in the summer of 2006, but things have only gone upwards ever since. They have signed some top players and have a strong core of English players in the squad.

They started the 06-07 in great form but stuttered towards the middle of the season. Villa signed John Carew and Ashley Young in the January transfer window, two players who would feature heavily in the next few years for Villa.

Despite form dropping during the middle of the season, Villa finished the seasoned strongly and ended up eleventh in the Premiership – an impressive five places higher than the previous summer.

The summer of 2007 saw more English talent come to Villa Park, including Curtis Davies, Nigel Reo-Coker and Marlon Harewood.

A successful 07-08 campaign saw Villa’s young, English talent gain international recognition with five of their players being in the England squad at one time. Villa gained praise from all angles because of this and also due to their attacking, free flowing football. Local boy Gabriel Agbonlahor and Ashley Young’s combination of pace and skill was making them two of the most feared players in the premiership. Another contribution to Villa’s success during this campaign was the return to fitness of Martin Laursen. The Danish defender had been plagued with knee injuries since joining Villa but became a permanent fixture in the side during this season.

Villa finished 6th in the 07-08 season and were very unlucky not to gain automatic entry into the uefa cup, they instead had to settle for a place in the intertoto cup.

The summer of 2008 saw more upheaval at Villa Park with eight new players coming in. Amongst them were James Milner, Carlos Cuellar and Brad Friedel. Villa’s season started early through their participation in the intertoto cup in which they sailed through and qualified for the uefa cup.

To add to positive start to their 08-09 league campaign, Villa started their first European campaign in eight years successfully. They eased past Litex Lovech in the first round to qualify for the group stage. They then qualified from their group with a gain to spare.

Even though Villa are going strong in the league(they currently sit 5th in the league) and in Europe there is talk of big investment in the squad in the January window and this can only bode well for the future. With the team having more games than ever this season and having to travel all over Europe, the manager knows that a bigger squad is a necessity if they want sustained success.

Whatever way you look at Villa now, you can’t help but notice what a massive transformation has gone on there. From being a club in crisis, they are now going places and it seems that the only way this club is going is up


Related Links:

http://www.birminghampost.net/midlands-birmingham-sport/west-midlands-sports/aston-villa-fc/2008/08/29/aston-villa-sign-newcastle-united-midfielder-james-milner-65233-21634125/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/europe/7578381.stm


References

Ashley Young and John Carew image – http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/200804/r242636_986195.jpg

Marlon Harewood and Nigel Reo-Coker image –
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/40793000/jpg/_40793766_wham2_300.jpg

Gabriel Agbonlahor image –
http://www.independent.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00026/agbonlahor_26261t.jpg

Brad Friedel image –
http://img.skysports.com/08/04/218x298/Brad_Friedel_830293.jpg

Randy steps in


On 19th September 2006, Randy Lerner officially became the owner and chairman of Aston Villa Club. Many saw this as the day that Villa were awoken from there coma.

In the summer of 2006, there was massive unrest at Villa. The manager at the time David O’Leary was under huge pressure from fans and players alike. After finishing a dismal 16th in the league, the calls for him to leave his job were deafening. However with Doug ‘deadly’ Ellis seemingly unwilling to get rid of the Irishman, and therefore avoid having to pay a massive compensation package, and O’Leary refusing to quit there seemed to be no light at the end of the tunnel for Villa fans.

However, it later came out in the local media that certain players were desperate for the to manager leave, and if this didn’t happen then they would leave the club. With his position seemingly untenable O’Leary left Aston Villa in July 2006 by mutual consent.

It was not only O’Leary that the fans and players were unhappy with. Over the years fans have become increasingly annoyed over the lack of funds spent by Ellis, and after having seen their club overtaken by ‘lesser’ teams, the majority thought it was time for him to call it a day.

After much speculation, Martin O’Neill was appointed as O’Leary’s successor on 4th August 2006. It was an appointment that was very popular with Villa fans and there was now optimism surrounding the club. However fans were still desperate for Ellis to leave the club and give way for a wealthy owner to come in who could give O’Neill the backing to take the club forward.


As the end of August (and the end of the transfer window) drew nearer, speculation was mounting that American businessman Randy Lerner was getting closer to agreeing a deal to buy the club. On 14th August 2006 it was confirmed that an agreement had been made for Lerner to buy the club for £62.6 million.

Stiliyan Petrov joined the club for £6.5 million at the end of August and was O’Neill’s first signing. Fans hoped that big money signings like this would be a regular occurrence in the future.

On 19th September 2006 Randy Lerner was named as the new owner of Aston Villa. The billionaire businessman spoke about his intention to restore Villa to their former glories. The summer of 2006 is one that Villa fans will never forget and was one that will change the club forever.

Related Links:


http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/a/aston_villa/4789693.stm
http://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/2006/0719/olearyd.html


References

David O’Leary image –
http://images.scotsman.com/2002/06/27/en2706leedb.jpg

Doug Ellis image –
http://images.icnetwork.co.uk/upl/birmmail/mar2008/7/7/8383E04F-C93F-D5FE-83A9D608966F38D9.jpg

Martin O’Neill image –
http://images.mirror.co.uk/upl/m2/jan2007/2/7/256C07F4-C384-3895-18A19F7AC86BEADB.jpg

Randy Lerner image –
http://www.bbc.co.uk/birmingham/content/images/2006/07/28/randy_lerner_203_203x152.jpg

British hope?

For years now every June in the south West of London a nation watches in hope rather than expectation. Their combined hope is that once again Wimbledon will have an British winner (last male winner was Frederick John Perry in 1936). In the recent past this expectation has fallen mainly on the shoulders of Tim Henman with support or lack of it from Greg Rusedski. With all the support of the home crowd and from Henman hill, he never really got close to acheiving his dream (his closest effort was reaching the semi final). But as Henman has now retired the pressure has now been firmly heaped on young Scottish starlet Andy Murray. After an excellent year he is starting to show the great talent that he possesses, with five tournament wins already this year, his most recent being his defense of the St. Petersburg Open. Ranked fourth in the world he has shown he can mix it with the big boys in the tennis world, knocking Nadal out in the semis of the US Open this year proved that. With his recent resurgence, many are hoping that he can finally end the drought of British Wimbledon winners and if he carries on his form of this year then it is a real possibility. One things for sure, Murray's mound will be packed to the rafters for many summers to come.