Aston Villa players in limbo over Paul Lambert's future says Ron Vlaar

The boss is due to meet Randy Lerner in America this week for crisis talks after the owner confirmed his desire to sell.

Lambert has lost fans' faith after another season of struggle and is not expected to survive a takeover should one happen this summer.

And captain Vlaar – who is in the Holland squad for the World Cup – admitted he is in limbo.

He said: "I have no idea to be honest. I know the rumours but what can I say? We will wait to see what is happening. As players we have to look to ourselves and we realise it has to be better. We have to do our things on the pitch.

"I think he has been very important up until now.

"The last few months were really hard for everyone but we made it. It's Aston Villa though and if I looked at myself you want to do better. We have to get back in mid-table and look from there."

Villa lost 20 games in the Premier League – including six of their last eight – to finish 15th and just five points above the relegation zone.

They were thumped 3-0 by Tottenham in Sunday's finale and Vlaar said they are lucky the season has finished.

"If you are honest we should be happy the season isn't two or three games longer because we were in big trouble," said the 29-year-old. "It's over now and the most important thing is Aston Villa staying in the Premier League. We have a summer to recover and start again. We all know and realise something needs to change to get better results.

"If you get a few bad results it's going to get your confidence and you could see that back in the team. It didn't work for us. We got the win against Hull and it was massive - but that's the only good result besides the draw with Southampton. It's not good enough.

"The difference between this year and last year is last year we climbed the table and this time we dropped down."