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