Aston Villa

Aston Villa have, for almost the entire duration of their 12-year membership of the Premier 
League, been caught between ‘a rock and a hard place’. Villa have been wedged between 
Doug Ellis’s pragmatic running of the club on a sound business footing, without expenditure 
exceeding income, and the desire of fans, and his managers, to build on the top six status 
they enjoyed in the early Premiership years. That clash of vision has cost nine managers 
their job and although it has kept Villa in the top flight times have changed since Doug Ellis 
returned for his second stint at Villa Park two decades ago. Nine is also the number of 
times Villa have finished in the top 10 of the Premier League although, ironically, the club’s 
best campaign was the first, 1992–93.

Under Ron Atkinson Villa, after waiting until the fifth game for a win, stormed through the 
first half of the campaign and by Christmas were second having won seven games out of 
11, losing just once. Despite the hiccup of a couple of defeats the team rallied and went 
top in February with victory over Chelsea. Eleven points from a possible 15 confirmed 
Premier League leadership but losing to Norwich severely damaged title hopes but Villa got 
back in the championship race with three wins and a draw before their season turned on 
one game.

With three games left, losing 3–0 at Blackburn effectively ended championship ambitions 
and the team collapsed losing the last two as well to finish 10 points behind champions 
Manchester United, who they had taken four points from.

The next campaign saw Villa second in November but focus on the League took second 
place to the Coca-Cola Cup, which they won, but their season fizzled out to 10th place. 
The following season, under Brian Little, the ‘R’ word first came into Villa Park’s Premiership 
vocabulary as the team flirted with relegation. Only two games were won in the first 14 
and Villa were 19th in November. The year ended in the relegation zone.

Although they weren’t to know it at the time three wins and a draw in February kept Aston 
Villa amongst the elite because there were only two more victories in the last 12 games 
and the drop was avoided by just three points.

Then came a couple of good seasons when Villa did indeed establish themselves as a top 
six club. In the first half of 1995–96 they were always in the top seven, as high as second 
in September, and the team was fourth by February. But the lack of a sustained winning 
sequence, two games at most, consigned Villa to that fourth place. The next campaign 
Villa finished fifth, after being as high as fourth at Christmas.

Villa failed to push from their previous good seasons and were 15th in February. Brian Little 
resigned and was succeeded by John Gregory who engineered nine victories in the last 11 
games for a respectable finish of seventh.

John Gregory proved a moderate success at Villa Park but in the four years of his reign 
the team only ever finished finish higher than they did in his first season, once. In 1998–99 
Villa looked, for a long time, as genuine title contenders. They went top with three wins 
and a draw from the first four games and remained in pole position until Boxing Day until 
beaten by Blackburn. But a dreadful second half of the campaign, in which there were 
seven defeats in one eight-game spell, meant the side were fortunate to finish sixth.

Villa then slipped a place in each of the three subsequent seasons and in 2002 John 
Gregory decided he had had enough and resigned, just short of his fourth anniversary in 
the job, citing a lack of funds for players as his main reason for going. Gregory felt a 
cash-injection was necessary to turn Villa back into championship contenders. Doug Ellis 
wasn’t prepared to open his cheque-book and so former manager Graham Taylor stepped 
back into the breach, from his place on the board but despite being seventh, into April, 
the team ended the campaign 8th.

Graham Taylor did his best for the team but the bulk of 2002–03 was spent in the lower 
regions of the table and relying on the goals from veteran Dion Dublin because of the 
failure of John Gregory’s record £9.5 million capture of Juan Pablo Angel to adjust to the 
Premiership. Even new international star Darius Vassell struggled to replicate his England 
form in his day job. Just two wins in the last 12 games ensured a disappointing 16th place 
finish. And finish was what Graham Taylor did when he resigned after 15 months as 
manager saying that Villa, as a club, ‘was not run properly’. Six days later David O’Leary 
ended his 11 month exile by becoming the new manager.

There were many who criticised O’Leary as being a cheque-book manager when he spent 
nearly £100 million at Leeds. But he grabbed the chance at Villa Park to prove his 
coaching and managerial acumen on a relative shoe-string, because Doug still kept a tight 
grip on the purse-strings, and took Villa to within one game of qualifying for the UEFA Cup, 
but they lost to Manchester United on the last day and missed out by just goal difference 
to Newcastle for a place in Europe.

Doug Ellis may be regarded as a dinosaur in some quarters but he is enough of a 
businessman to know that unless he invests in David O’Leary’s obvious ability his beloved 
Villa may miss out on their best chance in more than a decade of turning potential into a 
real chance of Champions’ League football.

Managers

Ron Atkinson          1991–1994

Brian Little             1994–1998

John Gregory          1998–2002

Graham Taylor OBE  2002–2003

David O’Leary          May 2003–