Villa!

As the summer ticks by and Real Madrid and Manchester City buy everyone in site while just about everybody else sits back and waits you have to wonder if Aston Villa is going to make any noise on the transfer market. Past February of this year its been pretty tough being a Villa fan. First you had the decision by Martin O'Neil to send a B team to Russia to get crushed out of the UEFA Cup by CSKA Moscow. Then you had the poor bit of form to finish the Premier League season going from the pole position of potential Champion's League qualification to ten points south of Arsenal. Then the end of the year brought the difficult news that the captain and defensive leader Martin Laursen was going to call it quits due to injuries. Just when it couldn't get any worse, Mr. Aston Villa, Gareth Barry decided to forgo Liverpool (which made sense) to sign on with Manchester City (which made no sense). Some pretty difficult times. With Manchester City going crazy in the transfer market, Tottenham re-acquiring their striking squad (DeFoe, Keane AND Crouch!), and Everton and Fulham as consistent as ever the thought of a Champions League birth is a distant dream at this point.

Which begs the question: what the hell is going on in Birmingham? Rumors are a plenty, from Fabian Delph to Darren Bent to Sylvian Distin they've been linked with a whole bunch of different potential players. To this point the Stewart Downing signing is the lone move. Even worse rumors are constant of potential moves from the likes of John Carew and Ashley Young. Other than Downing, who's out until December, the one move the club has made is to sell Zat Knight before they have a legitimate replacement for him. Now they have to go and fill the hole of not only Laursen, but Knight as well. The lack of moves are being felt in the message boards amongst worldwide Villa fans where more and more are speaking badly of Randy Lerner and his ownership group. Even though the team spent 50 million to get in contention last year the mood seems more and more like a club happy to be a mid-place but profitable side.

It's difficult to see the club, who showed so much promise last year, to be a middling contender at best. There's no chance they'll compete for a Champions League spot and with the lack of depth they currently have they look about an 8th place squad at best. I'm beginning to agree with a lot of my fellow Villa fans in the idea that Martin O'Neil is the perfect manager for Villa. He'll happily work within the parameters of a shoestring budget and not go out of his way to gamble on expensive and slightly risky players. Like a prominent Villa blogger noted this week, he spends the club's money as if he's spending his own money.

So what does the season hold? I'll post a preview in the coming weeks.