{"id":600118,"date":"2026-08-21T11:22:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-21T11:22:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/600118\/"},"modified":"2026-08-21T11:22:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T11:22:13","slug":"aston-villa-from-european-glory-to-upheaval-aston-villas-summer-of-sales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/600118\/","title":{"rendered":"Aston Villa: From European glory to upheaval – Aston Villa’s summer of sales"},"content":{"rendered":"

Despite the departures optimism remains. Last week’s battling Super Cup defeat in Salzbug to Paris St-Germain<\/a> still showed Villa’s competitiveness and Emery’s powers of adaptability. <\/p>\n

Emery has constantly needed to roll with the punches during his three-and-a-half years in charge but he has consistently improved Villa, having taken over when they were 14th following Steven Gerrard’s reign. <\/p>\n

In Austria, skipper John McGinn pointed to the fact they still have Emery while others – Manchester City<\/a>, Liverpool<\/a> and Chelsea<\/a> – have new managers and that Villa’s structure remains intact. <\/p>\n

“We have a structure in place, standards and rules which have made us a success. I am really excited about the new Aston Villa<\/a>,” said McGinn.<\/p>\n

That includes Brian Madjo after Villa won their battle with Fifa to register the 17-year-old earlier this month.<\/a><\/p>\n

The striker scored on his debut against PSG, eight months after initially signing from Metz for \u00a310m, and could prove one of the surprises of the season. <\/p>\n

The drive towards younger players comes after Roberto Olabe replaced Monchi last September as president of football operations with a long-to-mid term directive on transfers. <\/p>\n

Midfielder Joao Gomes, 25, goalkeeper Zion Suzuki, 23 and defender Matteo Ruggeri, 24, have joined this summer after 20-year-old Johan Manzambi became the club’s record buy in July.<\/a><\/p>\n

They have also had an \u00a318m bid rejected<\/a> for 24-year-old Southampton defender Taylor Harwood-Bellis. <\/p>\n

The loan signing, with an obligation to buy, of Alejandro Garnacho from Chelsea<\/a> allows Villa to spread the cost while Aaron Wan-Bissaka is due to move from West Ham on a similar deal.<\/p>\n

“The problem is they may now be at the end of a chain of transfer deals, with the players involved and their transfer targets dependent on other moves happening first,” said the former Villa decision-maker.<\/p>\n

Above all, though, Emery remains Villa’s biggest asset and he has overhauled them before. This time it would be one of his biggest achievements.<\/p>\n

“There’s a lot of hope and ambition resting with the manager,” said the ex-Villa Park executive.<\/p>\n

“He’s the ace card they’ve got left and everybody’s hoping with his experience and knowledge they can pull through. <\/p>\n

“It’s a lot of pressure on him and you’ve got to wonder if he’s trying to think ‘maybe I need to go somewhere else with more resources?’<\/p>\n

“I don’t think it’ll be this season but, at some stage as a manager, you get fed up juggling all those demands.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Despite the departures optimism remains. Last week’s battling Super Cup defeat in Salzbug to Paris St-Germain still showed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":600119,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-600118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=600118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600118\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/600119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=600118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=600118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=600118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}