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GOOD TIMES; Villa manager Dean Smith with talisman Jack Grealish

“WE want to build one of the best clubs in the world.” These are the words of Wes Edens, one of the billionaire co-owners of Aston Villa football club in the immediate afterglow of Wembley playoff success last May.

And the club has wasted no time laying the foundations to meet such lofty ambitions after spending three highly eventful years in the English Championship. Within days of that victory three telling developments took place.

Firstly, talk of a victory celebrations through the streets of Birmingham was dismissed by the club hierarchy in “a matter of seconds” - a clear statement that achieving promotion was simply a matter of restoring normal service.

“[Parades] are for when you win something really big,” explained chief executive Christian Purslow. “We’re Aston Villa, we have parades when we win leagues and cups’ not when we get promoted - effectively third.”

Next came the cull; nine players were immediately jettisoned – including several with vast Premier League experience and others who had been mainstays in the promotion winning team. More departures are likely to follow before the transfer window shuts.

Thirdly, there was the immediate and intense assault in the transfer market – eleven new recruits so far, with at least three more to come with a final spend likely to hit £140 million.

So what does it say of Aston Villa’s ambition over the coming season?

Manager Dean Smith chooses to be bold, Premier League survival seems to be the least of his aspirations. “It feels right that Villa are in the Premier League, the history and the size of the club, the fans it has.

“We’ve done some hard years trying to get back into the Premier League. We’ve fallen on hard times. But we work very hard every day and the potential with the owners that we have is massive.”

Fans will look to the recent history of two other Midlands clubs for inspiration – Leicester City for obvious reasons, but more realistically the hope that Villa can “do a Wolves”.

With the exceptions of Manchester City and Liverpool, Wolverhampton Wanderers were arguably the Premier League team of the season over the last campaign.

They assembled a collective of street-wise attackers, astute, technically gifted centre-backs and ball-playing defensive midfielders adept at breaking up opposition attacks with the guile and precision to transition quickly from defence to attack in measured elegant fashion.

The team finished seventh and earned a European spot, but the foundations for Wolves’ success were forged in the Championship a year earlier.

They were a Premier League team in waiting – adorned with an array of players of world class pedigree.

They had become accustomed to playing with a fluency, familiarity and winning mentality that Premier League rivals simply could not get to grips with.

Villa cannot mirror this. Having finished fifth last year there was an immediate recognition that the squad as not strong enough - hence the multi-million pound refit. 

But when going big in the transfer market, the experience of Fulham offers a cautionary note.

The Cottagers, like Villa, were backed by success hungry, cash rich US owners and similarly spent in excess of £100 million in the transfer market.

A major flaw of Fulham’s strategy was to overlook many of the players who drove them to promotion success. A winning team was dismantled and player recruitment came late in the transfer window.

There seemed to be a fixation with securing individual attacking talent, at the cost of team cohesion. Conceding 81 goals in 38 matches across the season told its own story – a solid defence was not laid.

Despite lazy comparisons, Villa have handled their business very differently.

Aston Villa were transformed in the final third of the season in no small part by the contribution of key two players - winter loanee Tyrone Mings who was drafted in to shore up the leaky defence and the re-emergence of the talismanic Jack Grealish after an injury plagued first half of the season.

Their combined presence formed a spine for the team and was a major factor in a record-breaking ten match winning streak that propelled them to promotion.

IN WITH A SHOUT OF SURVIVAL: Tyrone Mings was crucial to Aston Villa towards the end of last season

So Smith spent an eye-watering £20 million re-sign Mings from Bournemouth on a permanent basis and also locked down all the other major contributors to the success including Grealish and the highly rated John McGinn (who were rewarded with enhanced contracts) and converting other loan signings, wide man Anwar El-Ghazi and defensive utility man Courtney Hause.

And in direct contrast to Fulham, Villa have invested heavily in well-scouted defensive reinforcements. Ezri Konza, an England under 21 international who Smith previously managed at Brentford joined as did Bjorn Engels a Belgian playing in France who Smith had scouted for 18 months.

Two new fullbacks arrived – Matt Targett from Southampton and Frederic Guilbert from Caen, Brazil under 23 captain Douglas Luiz was signed from Manchester City with deals for at least one more midfielder and a new goalkeeper still in the pipeline.
 
Upfront, Villa have signed Brazilian forward Wesley from Club Brugge for a club record fee of £22 million to replace of Tammy Abrahams who – much to Villa’s disappointment - returned to parent club Chelsea after firing Villa to promotion scoring 26 goals last term.

But Wesley tends to be far more of a link up striker than Abrahams, and is unlikely to make for a like-for-like replacement as Smith looks to share the goal scoring responsibilities more widely – hence the acquisition of an out-and-out winger for either flank in the guise of Jota from Birmingham City, and Trezuguet, a talented 24-year old Egyptian who impressed at the recent Africa Cup of Nations tournament.

And Villa, remain in the market for further offensive recruits with Ivory Coast forward Jonathan Kodjia currently the only other senior forward likely to remain with the club.

Villa are building a team with higher ambitions than survival but as one fan put it on social media, it is important than with all the rising expectation circling around Villa Park that “things don’t do into meltdown if Tottenham beat us on the opening day.”

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