Agreed.
But, if we lost Richarlison or DCL and replaced them with the players Villa have signed I would be hopeful that they will improve us in spite of losing our best player but I certainly would have doubts.
I think Grealish was a bigger influence on Villa than Richarlison is on Everton btw.
For years I have been listening to clubs who have going to pass us out and leave us trailing, but we are still a top half premiership team and most of the others have slipped back.
I think Villa will be mid table this season and there is nothing wrong with that..
I haven't a clue where we will be but we still have all the players so far that had us in the top six area for most of last season , I think the next three weeks will influence that a lot.
I think the addition of maybe three or even two more quality players would give us a very strong first eleven and my hope is we get those.
This is a good point. Lots of people saying we will get "left behind". You are always 1 season, 1 window, even a few results away from a complete transformation. Sometimes it's the same players and a different coach, sometimes it could be a different goalkeeper, or a defensive midfielder making the world of difference.
How you can genuinely get left behind is if you overspend into oblivion. That is something very few can overcome. Even the strongest can only outrun it for so long, just look at Barcelona. And if things had worked out slightly differently over the last 18 months with COVID and the Super League, it could've been a number of top teams facing some very difficult times. The fact the big 6 were punished so little, as well as being very unfair, also hints at the kind of financial situation they could've been in had they been punished more severely in relation to what to they did.
For me, it makes sense to take this time to cut our cloth accordingly and go again. Ancelotti was a roll of the dice. Getting someone with his name and stature, and backing him with top names was, I believe, us trying to seize a potential opportunity to steal a march on other teams, and it failed. You can't just keep going again and again. Well, you can, but it won't end well unless you happen to go out and win the lot.
Benitez may not be everyones first choice to be our manager, or anyone's for that matter, but he has obviously been brought in as a tactical coach with lots of experience and something to prove. He keeps some of the credentials and reputation of Ancelotti, while being slightly more pragmatic a choice over romanticism.
We could do a lot worse than having a year or 2 to develop some foundations, reset the mess we have ended up with, and lower expectations before hopefully, coming back stronger in the long run. If we have any success in the meantime, bonus.
But at the moment, it's seemingly about being realistic.