It is no longer a question of if, but when as long as things stay the same with Villa. Aston Villa have yet to improve under Steven Gerrard, despite spending hundreds of millions of euros in two transfer windows, which will undoubtably cost the Liverpool Legend his job.
When Aston Villa convinced Steven Gerrard to leave his title-winning Rangers team, I (and so many others) thought that he was destined to succeed in turning Aston Villa into a Premier League powerhouse. Not only had Gerrard performed a miracle by winning a title with Rangers while going unbeaten all season, but he also had access to over hundreds of millions of euros at Villa to create a Top-6 contending team.
Yet, that hasn’t happened. In fact, the opposite has happened as Aston Villa have edged closer to relegation than the Top-6.
In the 30 matches Gerrad has managed Aston Villa, the team has only gone 11-5-14, has had a goal difference of just +1 (41GF-40GA), and finished 14th last season. Obviously, that’s not terrible for a mid-table side like Villa has been the last few seasons under Steven Gerrard and former manager Dean Smith. But, like I said, Aston Villa’s ownership and hierarchy want to challenge for the Europa League and Champions League places.
What’s even more worrying is that Steven Gerrard has spent nearly €150M on transfers for stars like Phillipe Coutinho, Leon Bailly (who was actually bought under Smith, but was injured for a vast majority of the time of Smith’s reign), Diego Carlos, Lucas Digne, Boubacar Kamara, and Robin Olsen, and has yet to show any progress during this season.
With losses to Crystal Palace and newly promoted Bournemouth, it almost seems like Aston Villa are reverting back to their relegation days rather than moving forward. Obviously, Villa’s owners can’t be happy with that. Plus, the friction and public spat with club captain Tyrone Mings has not helped the managers case with the English media as a majority of them have supported the English center back over Gerrard. Seemingly, everything that can go wrong for Gerrard right now, has gone wrong.
Now, it is still really early on in the season and Gerrard has time to improve his fortunes. But, if he loses too many more games against winnable opponents (such as Leicester on 9/10, Southampton 9/16, and Leeds 10/2), then Gerrard should be looking if any Scottish club has a managerial opening. He’s going to need it.
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