Aston Villa Football Club entered the 2025-26 Premier League season projected to finish just outside the top six. Fast forward four weeks, and they failed to score in their first four games — leaving them the lowest-scoring team across the top ten divisions of English football.
So how are they now third place in the league?
For starters, you can’t overstate the impact head coach Unai Emery has had on the Villans.
During his tenure, Emery has maintained a 56% win rate, winning 1.9 points per game. For some context, former manager and famous slip-and-slide enthusiast Steven Gerrard won only 33% of his games, at a rate of 1.2 points per game.
When Emery joined the club early in the 2022-23 season, Villa were reeling in 14th place. All indications said they were heading back down to the Championship, in what felt like karma for their controversial promotion.
They then went on to win 15 of their next 25 games, finishing seventh in the Premier League and qualifying for the UEFA Europa Conference League. Emery was an obvious nominee for Premier League Manager of the Year.
While Villa fell in the Europa League semifinals, Emery’s players managed to finish top four in the Premier League — securing a spot in the UEFA Champions League for the first time in 41 years.
The joy spilled over into the following year. Despite the ever-gloomy weather, the people of Birmingham finally had reason to celebrate.
Villa finished the season in sixth, qualifying for Europa League. They went on to lose in the Champions League quarterfinals to the eventual champions, Paris Saint-Germain.
So should we really be surprised that Villa are well on track for another top-four finish?
Kind of. The start to the 2025-26 season was rough for the Villans.
After being fined by UEFA for a breach of cost-control rules, Aston Villa reached an agreement requiring them to achieve a net positive transfer balance by the end of the 2024-25 season.
This meant Villa couldn’t really sign any of their targets, and several of their players were put on a fire sale to bring in revenue quickly.
Fittingly, they entered the season with one of the cheapest squads in the league. Though good players usually cost good money, Villa’s group thrived without a massive bankroll, ranking third in the league for cost per point won.
For the Birmingham-based club, it was clearly a matter of getting their best players to click.
Promising talent Morgan Rogers now has a combined 12 goals and assists in the league and the ever-reliable Ollie Watkins has eight goals. The two will be bolstered by Tammy Abraham — a proven 15-goal scorer in English football — whose homecoming to Villa took place in late January.
Youri Tielemans and Amadou Onana are perfect complements in the midfield, the former as a playmaker and the latter profiling as one of the best defensive midfielders on the planet.
Ezri Konsa has remained ever so stable defensively, and having Emiliano Martínez as the last line of defense gives you a mental edge every time you step on grass.
That said, given how well Villa have been playing, there have naturally been doubts about whether their current run is sustainable.
They have been making a mockery of expected metrics, ranking 13th in expected points (xPts) per Understat. Between the players they have and the leadership of one of the best head coaches in the world, it’s hard to see Villa finishing outside the top four again.
Winning the Premier League may still be too ambitious a goal for the Villans, but at the rate they’re progressing, you never know. Maybe someday…
