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Villa Talk
Season Three Expectations
With the last two seasons bringing finishing places of third and fourth respectively then it is only natural that expectations will be high this coming season for Aston Villa and while finishing top four remains our aim we also have to be realistic and accept that this will be no easy task. Seasonal ageing is now starting to bite and out of all the Premier League clubs that are expected to challenge for a place in the Champions League Aston Villa are probably the club most affected by the fallout from this particular change of rule. Steps have already begun to reduce the average age of our playing squad but that process comes at a price, not only does it reduce our ability on the pitch it also comes at a financial cost, that is unless you you intend to be far less competitive and although we now look slightly weaker in terms of ability we do hope to remain competitive. Another new feature is the clubs academy and we are hopeful that this can produce a player or two that at a minimum will be capable of pushing the first eleven in the not too distant future, we keep our fingers crossed on that one.
Ins And Outs
For the foreseeable future our player movements in and out of the club will mainly be made with the aim of reducing the average age of the squad in mind. For some time now we have been privately going about our business in an attempt to make some deals that will benefit Aston Villa, this has proved a far more difficult task than normal but we have had to make the best of this not very favourable position that we now find ourselves in. So to sum up, three new players join while two long standing players depart. Through the door comes a new squad player Sakarius Opsahl, born in Norway Sakarius likes to play a holding midfield role and is hoping that he can contribute whenever he gets the chance. Also arriving at Villa Park is the new front man Julian Alvarez, Making way for Julian is Mo Salah and while we were very sorry to see the back of Mo we felt the deal was necessary as it helps bring down the average age of the squad. Alvarez may be well behind Salah in terms of goal scoring ability but can pick a pass better than Mo and is also considerably younger than Mo, for this reason we found ourselves having to add cash to the deal in order to entice Alvarez to Villa Park and it is hoped that in time Alvarez will step up to the plate. Our third new player to join the ranks is goalkeeper Alex Meret. Finding a willing goalkeeper to replace our ageing number one Oliver Baumann was extremely challenging and in the end we had to settle on the Italian Alex Meret who we hope can soon settle in and and in time also step up to the plate, Alex may be younger than our previous number one but is also lower down the ranks as far as ratings go but again we had to address the age issue as Oliver Baumann was reaching his twilight years in the game and replacing him would have just become more and more of a challenge as the seasons went by. During this coming season we also need to address the fact that some of our fringe players are going to become past their sell by dates and replacing them will be a cost that will put further pressure on the finances. It looks very much like there are to be challenging times ahead here at Villa Park.
Total word count including 'The EFL Big Eight' doc in Storylines = 2,540