OPINION
Aston Villa fans must worry as defender Tommy Elphick seemed to hint that the club did rely on Tammy Abraham and Jack Grealish too much, which means the club is effectively an unstable house of cards.
The 31-year-old centre-back rightly claimed that the Villans can’t be a club that relies just on Grealish, who the team have struggled without as of late, and pointed out there needed to be other solutions when the midfielder as well Abraham are missing.
“We can’t be a club that just relies on Jack Grealish,” Elphick said, as quoted by the Guardian.
“That’s unfair on him and it’s not a way to build a team. As good as Jack is, we need to come up with different solutions when the likes of Jack and Tammy might not be available.”
Villans fans must worry about Elphick’s remarks as he seems spot-on to hint that the team does put too much of the burden of success on Grealish and Abraham.
Since Grealish has been on the shelf since December, Dean Smith’s side have only managed two wins in 10 games while Abraham has done most of the work up front for his side as he lead the club’s scoring charts with 19 goals.
The closest to him is fellow forward Jonathan Kodjia and that shows how much the Villans currently rely on the 21-year-old forward.
Elphick remarks really suggest that the Villans are house of cards regarding their playing squad, when you consider that Grealish isn’t guaranteed to stay at the club in the summer, as the Villans could end up stuck in the Championship once again, and Abraham is only on loan to the end of the season.
The Sun even reported on Sunday that Aston Villa were planning for life after Grealish just in case he exits in the summer as they had their eyes on potentially making Nottingham Forest attacker Joe Lolley.
While the Forest 26-year-old is a fantastic talent he will still need time to settle and unlikely Grealish is not guaranteed he can be instrumental to the Villans’ success.
So with Elphick effectively stating that the Villans rely too much on Grealish as well as Abraham to a degree, and both potentially not at the club next season, it hints that the club are unstable house of cards that could collapse in the summer and that must worry supporters.