Will Aston Villa ever be good enough to finish in the top four?

Aston Villa are experiencing their typical end of season collapse. Ok we can say that they reached a Carling Cup final and a FA Cup final but their league form has seen them drop to seventh, eight points off fourth spot.

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This is not the first season that this has happened to the Villans in the last two campaigns. For much of last season they were challenging for a top four finish, yet they ended up finishing sixth behind Everton in fifth place.

The season before Aston Villa was in with a good chance of finishing fifth if not fourth before again being overtaken by Everton. There seems to be a common theme here and that’s they run out of gas when the season is reaching its latter stages.

Aston Villa face Everton at Villa Park tonight in desperate need of a victory to keep alive any faint hopes of Champions League qualification. Yet if the Toffees win the game they will be just one point behind Villa, although the home side will have a game in-hand.

For Everton to have made such a good recovery from a poor start to the season is admirable. However its Villa’s collapse that’s allowed the Toffee’s to get back near to them. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Everton overtook Villa and finished seventh.

Squad

My theory for Villa’s failure towards the end of the season is the size of their squad. Their squad is one of the smallest in the Premier League. Manager Martin O’Neill has worked on the quality over quantity theory.

This has slightly backfired as he cannot rotate his tired squad. The fact that they have done well in both the domestic cups has meant the small group of players having to play even more games this season.

Manager

There has been some speculation over the future of Aston Villa boss Martin O’Neill in recent weeks and months. He has already revealed that he will sit down and discuss the future with Villa owner Randy Lerner this summer.

He didn’t flatly deny that he was quitting the club. Maybe he believes he has taken the club as far as he can. He will need a big transfer budget this summer to expand and improve his squad. I believe if he is promised money to spend in the summer then he will stay with the club.

O’Neill knows what he needs to do to make Villa even more successful but it’s debatable whether their American owner is prepared to put any more money into the club. Only time will tell if O’Neill stays or not but if he does go I believe it will be to the detriment of the clubs development.

Competition

With it looking unlikely that Villa will clinch a Champions League spot this season, attention will turn to what happens next season. Villa will have just as much competition for a European place next season.

The likes of Manchester City, Liverpool, Tottenham and Everton will be likely to be competing for those European places next season. Villa need to strengthen heavily this summer if they are going to stay in touch let alone progress.

Future

Villa does have some good young talent in their team with the likes of Ashley Young, James Milner and Gabriel Agbonlahor all available to Martin O’Neill. They are just a few signings away from being challengers for the top four.

However I don’t believe they can attract those key signings and that could leave Villa as nearly men for the next few years. It’s a shame for a club who have all the foundations of a top four club. The game tonight could prove the season defining moment and they simply have to win. If not then I believe they could lose their European place and their manager as well this summer.