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After 105 seasons in the Premier League, Aston Villa was officially relegated to the Championship division when they lost to Manchester United. Despite the demotion, Aston Villa should have one of the best online soccer sportsbetting odds in the Championship division because they will be facing less talented teams that they faced in the Premier League.
Aston Villa’s relegation is something a lot of soccer experts felt should have happened years ago because the team hadn’t performed well in the past four seasons. As a matter of fact, the team’s decline can be traced seven years back to when then manager Martin O’Neill fielded a second-string side in the second leg of their UEFA Cup matchup against CSKA Moscow.
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O’Neill was criticized at the time because Aston Villa was tied 1-1 on aggregate after the first leg of the series. Despite still having a chance to advance to the next round, O’Neill decided not to eight first-team regulars, and the team ended up losing 2-0, losing the series 3-1 on aggregate.
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After the match, O’Neill hosted a dinner for the 295 fans that travelled to Russia, and tried to justify not playing his first-stringers during the match. The dinner ended up costing the club $15,000, but it was viewed positively by the fans in attendance.
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Despite O’Neill’s attempts to make it up to the fans, most Aston Villa supporters believe the damage was done after the club returned from Russia. Most Aston Villa fans point to the end of the 2008-2009 season as the beginning of the end for their club.
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Aston Villa’s appearance in the UEFA Cup was their first at the tournament in 11 years, so O’Neill leaving players like James Milner, Gareth Barry, Ashley Young, Gabriel Agbonlahor, and Stiliyan Petrov off the list of players he took to Russia left a bad taste in the mouth of fans.Â
Despite the loss to CSKA Moscow, Aston Villa was in 4th place in the Premier League at the time and had an eight game lead over Arsenal. A fourth place finish would have guaranteed the club a spot in the Champions League, but the team blew a two-goal lead over the Gunners and conceded two goals in the final three minutes of the match.
The loss deflated the team, and sent them in a tailspin. Aston Villa took only 10 points out of a possible 33 in their final 11 games, and finished the season in sixth place, 10 points behind Arsenal.
When Randy Lerner took over as the owner of Aston Villa, he said his goal was to turn Aston Villa into a team that could compete with the best teams in the Premier League and Europe. Lerner even got a tattoo of the team’s crest on his ankle to show how dedicated he was to the team.
In his first couple of years as owner, Lerner spent modestly on improving the team but the club never finished better than 6th. After three straight seasons of finishing sixth, O’Neill left the club and things started going downhill quickly.
Lerner refused to open up his wallet, and restricted the team’s player transfers to clubs in the United Kingdom. He also started hiring inexperienced executives and managers that have failed at other destinations to coach the team.
 In 2014, Lerner admitted that he had gotten in over his head and put the club up for sale. The club finished 15th in 2014 and 17th in 2015.Â
Now that the team has been relegated, fans are hoping that the board of directors will bring in a coach that can lead them back to the Premier League. With Lerner still in charge, it’s hard to say if it will happen.Â
Written by Ketan Patel
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