Comment: From staring down the barrel, Aston Villa and Steve Bruce have another shot at promotion
There has become an increasing need to remind oneself it was only a few weeks ago Villa were, in the words of manager Steve Bruce, “staring down the barrel.”
Such has been the rapid switch from hell to heaven at Villa Park, there are times when it feels as though the days of chaos which characterised the bulk of the summer never actually happened.
From the brink of administration, Villa once more have a spring in their stride both on and off the field, the dramatic change being brought about by the arrival of new majority shareholders Nassef Sawiris and Wes Edens.
“Five or six weeks ago we were looking down the barrel, we were losing our best players,” said Bruce on Friday. “It’s been quite the turnaround.
“The new owners have breathed life into everyone. Not just myself, the players, the staff and everyone around it.”
Things might not have worked out exactly as Bruce might have hoped. Full-back Joe Bryan was snatched from his grasp by Fulham, while it goes without saying the manager would have liked a little more than the week-and-a-half he got to secure permanent deals.
Those are, however, minor mishaps compared to what would have happened had Sawiris and Edens not arrived in the nick of time.
Their intervention meant the sales of Jack Grealish, James Chester and Jonathan Kodjia, which for so long seemed inevitable, never took place. Instead Bruce has been able to strengthen through the signings of Axel Tuanzebe, Orjan Nyland and most notably John McGinn.
This week the manager has added highly-rated Dutch winger Anwar El Ghazi, while on Friday morning he still remained confident of completing a deal for Yannick Bolasie, a player who moved for more than £25million just two years ago.
Such developments also mean expectations, never exactly small where Villa are concerned, are once more on the rise.
Encouragingly, this week saw the first signs Bruce’s team may be ready to deliver on their undoubted promise.
Villa’s performance in Wednesday’s 2-2 draw with Brentford was comfortably their best of the season to date. It could even be argued they have not reached such levels since the 4-1 battering of Wolves back in March. Attaining them regularly is key but should Villa do so, they can expect to again be firmly among the promotion contenders.
The stakes are not quite so high as a year ago when, as quickly became clear in the summer, the club’s very existence potentially rested on a return to the Premier League.
Sawiris and Edens’s presence means there should be no danger of further missed tax payments anytime soon.
Yet Financial Fair Play continues to cast a shadow. The previous regime’s plan to deal with a £40million shortfall was to sell Grealish. Now that hasn’t happened, it remains unclear how the club’s new custodians plan to tackle a problem which needs to be resolved before the end of the campaign.
More certain, at least in the short-term, is that from a position where they appeared to have missed perhaps their last big shot at promotion for some time, Bruce and Villa have been granted another chance. This time they have to grasp it.
