Aston Villa are definitely becoming the victims of their own success - and it doesn't sit right
Aston Villa players celebrate during the Europa League winners parade in Birmingham.
Aston Villa players celebrate during the Europa League winners parade in Birmingham.
View 5 Images
Remember when the transfer window was an exciting time to be a football fan? When the transfer window stirred with excitement that your team would lose a couple of their older players, or fringe stars, and replace them with upgrades.
When football was a wonderful game that was run by chairmen and managers, and not run by a bunch of accountants and their calculators.
You can't help but sympathise with Aston Villa fans - even though the club has just netted its first major silverware in decades. That same team that secured that stunning win in Turkey, is in real danger of being dismantled ahead of the new season.
Morgan Rogers is being touted for £100m to Arsenal, Manchester United are set to sign Youri Tielemans, and Lucas Digne could be off to PSG.
Aston Villa's Emi Martinez and Morgan Rogers
Aston Villa's Emi Martinez and Morgan Rogers
View 5 Images
There are rumours surrounding fans' favourite Emi Martinez leaving for Juventus, and Ollie Watkins being a serious target for Fenerbahce.
It's normal for teams to shed players at the end of a season, but at Villa that offloading process is looking like it could really attack the spine of the team.
Which takes us back to those accounts, those PSR rules, and the red tape that seems to stop Villa taking a step forward, yet gives the likes of Spurs carte blanche to spend like the tap is pouring out fifty-pound notes.
The current system protects the 'Big Six' and their historical financial advantage and scale, and in doing so it denies teams the chance to ever be at that level themselves.
Villa have already been penalised by UEFA and are one of four Premier League clubs to have been fined by UEFA for breaching financial sustainability regulations during the 2025-26 season.
Villa have been fined 22.5million euros (£19.4m), of which 15m euros (£12.9m) is suspended pending their continued compliance over a three-year period that began with an initial fine in July last year. In addition, Villa will face a restriction on the registration of new players for next season’s Champions League campaign. Under the UEFA settlement, Villa aren't allowed to register new signings for European competition unless the money that comes in from outgoings exceeds what is spent on incomings.
Seems a bit crazy when you have owners who are ready, willing, and able to do some serious damage to the Premier League and the Champions League.
Unai Emery, Manager of Aston Villa, celebrates on the shoulders of Emiliano Martinez(Image: Getty Images)
View 5 Images
This isn't new ground, everyone knows it's a busted flush, yet on it goes with very little common sense taking centre stage. Unai Emery and his side continue to turn water into wine given the fact that it's a team that still has Martinez, Emi Buendia, Tyrone Mings, John McGinn, Matty Cash, Watkins, Leon Bailey, Ezri Konsa. Those core players are all descendants of Dean Smith's Villa, that's a manager who left in 2021!
That's credit to Emery for shaping those players into a next generation of Villa players, playing at a level higher, but the reliance on them, tells a story all by itself.
Villa should by now be challenging at the very top, without having to jump through hoops and play the game of chance. Rules and regulations that are genuinely put in place to protect teams from going bust and to really help support the football pyramid, are to be applauded.
However, when those rules exist to penalise teams with ambition, taking away the dreams that fans have to see their team progress, you have to question what the point is.
If these systems are devised from good intentions, those same good intentions should be able to review the very parts of the system that are ruining the game. There's an argument that Villa will get good value for Tielemans, Martinez, Digne, Rogers, and whoever else they send on their way from Villa Park.
In the case of Digne and Tielemans, the release clause plays a significant role. There is however a good case to argue that every player listed above, they would prefer to hang on to if they didn't have the foreboding presence of PSR, turning the game into a mystifying battle of numbers.
ISTANBUL, TURKEY - MAY 20: Youri Tielemans of Aston Villa FC celebrates after scoring the team's first goal during the UEFA Europa League Final 2026 match between SC Freiburg and Aston Villa FC at Besiktas Park on May 20, 2026 in Istanbul, Turkey. (Photo by Alexandra Fechete/Sports Press Photo/Getty Images)
View 5 Images
The ground naming, player trading, women's team selling antics of recent years were a really disturbing trend that teams were forced to adopt; there will be more things like that that continue to happen.
Villa could feasibly go out and offer mega transfer fees and wages to a player of their choice, to instantly improve their squad, yet the game doesn't allow it. I'm all for teams being forced to push through the next generation of youngsters, because it's hard to see any real benefits that the academy systems are gaining.
The very purpose of an academy now seems to be to produce golden talent so they can be farmed out for big profits to help clubs with PSR levelling.
It's an appalling indictment of a tarnished football model, and one that surely has to change for fans to continue to have something to be passionate about. It has to be a level playing field for all.
When you have teams like Spurs able to chuck the cash about, while the likes of heavily backed Newcastle and Villa can't, it doesn't make much sense.
Robinho with Mark Hughes
(Image: Manchester City FC via Getty Images)
View 5 Images
Villa were the ones overachieving, when Spurs were the team that was arguably pretty lucky to stay in the division. I don't actually want to see a reckless return to the times that saw Manchester City ripping up the sanity script in signing Robinho for £32m in 2008, in today's money that would be around £130m.
That was clearly a moment that felt like football taking a step in a brand new direction, a bold, exciting, yet ultimately reckless direction. I'm not an advocate of that, it felt dangerous, and ultimately it was really unfair.
There has to be a system that is fair and just. At the moment it is the polar opposite of that and Villa are seemingly in a cycle of losing players and relying on great scouting to try and replace them, only to then have to start again.
The truth is that Villa have somewhat broken the system by building an organic success, but now the system wants to keep trying to break Villa in return.