Aston Villa comment: Forgotten heroes lost along Wembley Way

The Everton winger this week sent a rather classy ‘good luck’ message to Dean Smith’s men ahead of next Monday’s play-off final.

Bolasie completed his season with Anderlecht, having spent the first half on loan at Villa Park.

He left in January having made 21 appearances, at a time when Smith was attempting to reshape his team for the final months of the campaign.

It would be fair to claim Villa were probably expecting considerably more from a player whose £70,000-a-week wages they were paying in full.

Yet in a highly competitive division like the Championship, every point is precious.

Villa, it is worth remembering, only made the play-offs by three.

Bolasie helped earn one of those with a stoppage-time equaliser in the barmy 3-3 draw with Preston that turned out to be Steve Bruce’s final game in charge. The 29-year-old also made a key cameo off the bench in Villa’s 3-0 win at Derby back in November, delivering the cross from which John McGinn finally broke the Rams’ resistance.

His contribution perhaps best serves as a reminder that any success across a long, 46-game campaign will always be a squad effort.

Birkir Bjarnason, largely out of favour since January, is also likely to be absent from Monday’s matchday squad.

Yet the Iceland international’s two goals this season were worth four points.

That included a stoppage-time winner against Wigan back in August.

Goalkeeper Orjan Nyland suffered inconsistent form before a season-ending Achilles injury just before the turn of the year.

His last-gasp penalty save from Wilfried Bony at Swansea on Boxing Day preserved a 1-0 win and what turned out to be one of only two three-point hauls for Villa in the space of three months. Nyland, now in the final stages of his recovery, has no chance of featuring at Wembley.

Club captain James Chester, meanwhile, faces an uphill battle to make the squad having not played since January due to a knee injury.

There was a time, not so long ago, when the notion of Villa lining up without the Wales international at the heart of defence was utterly unthinkable.

For two-and-a-half seasons he missed only one match, through suspension, before the pain in his knee became too much to bear.

One of Chester’s final contributions was to score in Villa’s 2-2 home draw with Hull.

The goal, right on the stroke of half-time, got his team back in the game after the Tigers had raced into a 2-0 lead. Tammy Abraham would then earn Villa a share of the spoils in the second half.

The result, a disappointment at the time, might now be seen in a somewhat different light. A point which helped ensure Villa remained just about in the hunt for a top-six finish through the winter.

They head towards Wembley a team totally transformed from the one which struggled so badly through January and February. The starting XI, barring a couple of spots, pretty much picks itself. So too does the 18-man squad. Alan Hutton and Tommy Elphick, two other regulars earlier in the campaign, will also struggle to make it.

Villa stand just one step from returning to the Premier League. It is worth remembering the efforts of the many who helped get them to this point.