Comment: Welcome to Groundhog Day at Aston Villa

Welcome to Groundhog Day at Aston Villa. The only people missing from this picture are Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell.

Apologies if that sounds somewhat flippant, yet it is impossible to escape the feeling that, at least where Villa are concerned, we have seen this movie somewhere before.

Certainly this season currently looks a re-make of the 2016/17 campaign, featuring a managerial switch in October, followed by a swift upturn in results but then a slump and the acceptance, by late February, of promotion probably being already out of reach.

The key difference is back then Villa were less than a year removed from a shambolic relegation.

By now, pretty much every supporter would have expected them to be back in the Premier League, not still scrabbling around the middle of the Championship.

From that perspective, it is possible to question whether the club has made any progress at all in the intervening two years? Off the field in particular, things remain messy at best.

Back in early 2017, then manager Steve Bruce would frequently reference the near £40million combined cost of players Villa had out on loan.

Fast forward to the present day and the figure still remains close to £30million. Only some of the names have changed, with the likes of Carles Gil and Jordan Veretout replaced by Scott Hogan and James Bree.

Ross McCormack and Aaron Tshibola, for whom Villa shelled out a combined £17million during the summer of 2016, remain on the list. Neither has featured for their parent club in a Championship fixture for the last two years.

This, ultimately, is where clubs find themselves when the gamble of a quick return to the top flight goes wrong.

Former owner Tony Xia could rightly claim to have inherited a host of problems after buying the club in the aftermath of relegation. But by subsequently splashing the cash on players who didn’t deliver, he only increased them.

Nassef Sawiris and Wes Edens might have saved Villa from administration when they arrived in the nick of time last summer, yet the new owners’ cash was never going to solve long-term issues overnight.

At least they, along with chief executive Christian Purslow and head coach Dean Smith, offer hope of a different approach from now on.

Familiar though the current situation may be, it would be unfair to blame it on men who have been at the club just a matter of months.

Most important is how they look to fix it. The mooted plan of making the squad younger and cheaper should be seen as encouraging. Whether those above Smith will ultimately have the courage to stick with it, is the key question.

Barring a spectacular run of results, it seems certain Villa will again be in the Championship next season.

Should that be the case, no-one should be kidding themselves the summer won’t in some respects be painful.

Yet what it will also offer is a chance to start clearing the decks, to begin firmly putting in place the kind of strategy and culture change which should have been the policy back in 2016 and even before then.

Bringing about such change requires an element of bravery at a club like Villa, where pressure from a fanbase understandably lacking patience makes the quick fix option forever tempting.

But as Nigel Spink so rightly pointed out this week, it is time for Villa to accept what they currently are - a Championship club – and to start behaving as such.

The old ways have got them nowhere quick.