Will Aston Villa be Relegated?
Aston Villa were thrashed in their Premier League season opener against Brighton and Hove Albion at the weekend. With more key players set to leave Villa Park and little reinvestment in the squad, are the Villans in danger of dropping into the Championship despite playing in the Champions League this season?
Video Transcript
The Premier League was back with a bang this weekend for the start of the 2026/27 season.
There were some huge shocks up and down the country, so let's not delay, guys.
A bit of a change for this season.
I'm gonna try and review every single match of every single weekend of the Premier League season.
Still keep it as five matches to look out for every weekend, but let's go through every single game in detail, and I'll give my thoughts as we go here on thefootballchronicle.com.
But when I did my, when I did my, predictions, my pre-season bold predictions for this campaign, I was very, very tempted to say that Aston Villa and that Newcastle United were going to be in the bottom half of the season.
You know, they were gonna be bottom half of the table, 11th or below, when the campaign finished.
Now, I ended up switching that late on, an 11th-hour change as it were, bringing in Leeds to get into Europe.
That was my final prediction that I wrote.
I almost went with that, and I thought, "You know what?
Villa, I mean, I think they're gonna struggle this season a little bit compared to last, but I don't think they're gonna be too bad."
However, after watching them in this game , yeah, I think they're gonna struggle.
They are gonna struggle big time.
I mean, Ollie Watkins is going.
He wasn't involved in this match day squad.
And no offense to the guy, I mean, they had Hemmings that was on the wing, as it turns out.
Their striker for this game, quote-unquote striker, was Buendia, who is a good player, Buendia, don't get me wrong, but he's not a striker.
He's an attacking midfielder at most.
And they also had Marko Bizot in goal, 'cause Emi Martinez is obviously leaving too.
I mean, Suzuki has come in, of course, but he was not involved in this, this starting 11, as it were.
I imagine he will be for the next game given how Marko Bizot played in this one, which wasn't good, by the way.
The whole Villa team were absolutely shocking.
I mean, that first half is one of the worst first halves of football I have ever seen in the Premier League.
I won't say it's the worst.
The worst first half probably, and the worst second half, is when I watched my team, Sheffield United, lose 8-0 at home against Newcastle a good few years ago.
Yes, I was there for that.
I stayed for most of it.
I left at 6-0.
I had enough at that point.
By the time I got to my dad's car, it was 7-0.
Yeah, not a good day, not a good day was that.
But this really gave us a run for our money.
But the thing is, Sheffield United usually in the Premier League are terrible.
Aston Villa are a good team usually.
They're in the Champions League.
They won the Europa League last season.
They're a good team, a big club.
They should be able to be all right.
But even by the standards of their normal slow starts, this was embarrassing for the Villans.
I mean, my goodness me, what happened here?
Lindelof with an own goal after eight minutes.
De Kuyper with one after 18, and Hinshelwood with two goals in two minutes.
Has he even scored for Brighton before, the academy product?
I don't know if he has.
Maybe one or two here or there, but I mean, 4-0 down in 31 minutes.
That's absolutely shocking.
And then the game, if it wasn't already over, was over before even halftime.
Joao Gomes getting sent off in absolutely stupid fashion.
I mean, what are you doing?
Absolute letdown.
Embarrassing yourselves.
Letting your teammates suffer for another 45 minutes.
I mean, Brighton just took their foot off the gas in the second half.
They've got their energy to reserve.
They've of course got a, a Conference League qualifier against Tromso in midweek coming up, so they gotta put some of their eggs in that basket.
I don't blame them.
I mean, a 4-0 win to open the season, top of the Premier League as things stand.
I'll show you the table for what it's worth.
It's only one game played.
But for what it's worth, Brighton are top.
Fantastic for them.
Villa, I mean, Unai Emery has a lot of credit in the bank.
It is not his fault really.
He is an excellent manager.
But what is going on?
How is a club that is in Champions League football shedding quality players like this?
Get Grealish back.
Get Grealish back.
Loan him in from Man City.
He'd probably help, but I think they've got bigger problems than that, to be honest.
So yeah, very, very much alarm bells ringing at Villa Park.
I don't know when you'll be seeing this.
Probably you'll be seeing this on Monday morning.
But yeah, what did you think from the opening weekend of the Premier League season, guys?
Let us know in the f- comments below as always here on thefootballchronicle.com.
Football is back, as it were.
Top-flight football in England is back, and I'm absolutely loving it.
What a weekend to get us started.
Some huge shocks, like I said.
Your thoughts in the comments below as always.
Like, share, comment, subscribe.
See you soon, guys.
Have a good one.
