OPINION
Adrian Durham’s outrage over Aston Villa being voted the most likely to do well in the Premier League next season out of the promoted sides will surely come back to haunt him.
The talkSPORT broadcaster alongside Darren Gough asked listeners of their show to vote on which recently-promoted side would finish the highest in the league next season, and Villa steamrolled the poll.
Which team promoted to the Premier League will finish the highest next season?
— Adrian Durham (@TheAdrianDurham) May 28, 2019
Gough shared he expected the Villans to win the poll easily, when there was time remaining, and Durham just didn’t seem to understand why that was the case.
“Why would they do that? (Gough said Villa would win the poll) They finished fifth,” said Durham on talkSPORT (Tuesday May 28th, 17:37).
Gough then explained why he thought the Villans looked the most likely to do well in the Premier League out of the three promoted sides.
“It’s purely, they think they’re bigger, if you look at the bench last night, yesterday, you can see why, that was a strong bench for a Championship side…don’t you think?,” said the former England cricketer.
Durham still wouldn’t accept Villa winning the talkSPORT poll and seemed outraged over the fact that everyone was confident about the Villans.
“They’ve also got players on loan…Norwich 21 percent, Sheffield United 14 percent but you were right 65 percent say Aston Villa, it’s inexplicable, it doesn’t make any sense,” said the broadcaster.
“What are you talking about?”
Yet given how shocked Durham seemed to be over the Villans being the people’s choice alongside with him seeming a bit miff that the two teams who finished higher than the Villans in the Championship were being overlooked, maybe he’ll regret his stance come next summer.
Dean Smith’s side have several talented players on the books ahead of next season, including Jack Grealish and John McGinn and they’re believe to be having a very healthy amount of money to spend on improving the team.
The Daily Mail reported on Tuesday that the Villans were likely to have a transfer kitty of £50million and that is more than enough to add some quality players who would allow them to do well in the Premier League.
Also that budget is significantly more than what the newspaper believes Sheffield United and Norwich City will spend on improving their team, as their transfer kitty is mooted as being in the £20million region.
While money doesn’t guarantee success, it certainly helps and it would be no surprise if the Villans did dramatically better than the two other promotion teams as a result, especially with both those side have worryingly low transfer budgets.
So with this in mind Durham’s outrage at Villa winning talkSPORT’s poll will surely come back to haunt him when Smith’s side likely end up doing better than their two promotion rivals.