OPINION
Aston Villa have a lot of work to do this summer in the transfer market in order to prepare for the Premier League and one club they will not want to mimic is Fulham.
Fulham won promotion from the Championship in their 2017/18 campaign by beating the Villans in the play-off final but now find themselves preparing for life in England’s second-tier once again this summer, after being relegated upon their return to the top-flight.
Also it’s worth noting that Fulham were relegated with several games to go and only ended up getting 26 points from 38 games.
The Cottagers spent over £100million (Source: Evening Standard) last summer on transfers and were working on getting deals done right up until the window shut.
In fact Fulham made five signings on transfer deadline day, as stated by the Telegraph, and this left them with a very unsettled squad by the time the first game of the season occurred.
While the London club did make some errors with who they signed, for example Timothy Fosu-Mensah didn’t work out for them, they didn’t struggle just because they signed the wrong players.
Fulham struggled as they needed to welcome so many new faces after having won promotion to the Championship with a squad littered with on-loan players.
Given that Aston Villa benefited from having the likes of Tyrone Mings and Tammy Abraham on loan, it sounds eerily like Dean Smith’s side are in the same boat as Fulham were last summer.
The Villans also released several senior players, who they need to replace, such as Alan Hutton and Glenn Whelan so that shows the level of business they need to get done.
Sun journalist Alan Nixon shared that Aston Villa were in for a busy transfer window due to having a number of holes to fill, and didn’t exactly deny it was a similar situation to what Fulham found themselves in last summer.
There’s a lot of holes to fill. Will be busy. https://t.co/yhPHncix20
— Alan Nixon (@reluctantnicko) June 10, 2019
New players needed. Many have left. https://t.co/MagrjYR2L4
— Alan Nixon (@reluctantnicko) June 10, 2019
“There’s a lot of holes to fill. Will be busy,” wrote Nixon via his personal Twitter account.
“New players needed. Many have left.”
Of course the Villans have a chance of not mimicking the London club by getting deals done sooner rather than later in order to create a settled squad, but that’s no easy feat to pull off.
After all the Villans have to rely on other teams agreeing to sell them the players they want, and every team is going to hold out for a player’s maximum price.
So with that in mind, Aston Villa are worryingly at risk of mimicking Fulham’s 2017/18 season due to Nixon pointing out how much transfer business they need to get done, and that should leave fans sweating this summer.
As after waiting so long to get back to the Premier League, it would be awful if the club found themselves back in the Championship after one season.