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Aston Villa’s 1-1 draw with recently-promoted Sunderland on Sunday was the club’s fifth game out of five without a win in this season’s Premier League. The tepid result followed draws to Newcastle and Everton, alongside bitter defeats to Brentford and Crystal Palace, leaving the Birmingham club 18th in the league table. And while calls haven’t been made for Unai Emery’s head just yet, it seems as though Villa have been called into action and will make some changes within the club’s hierarchy.
According to the Athletic, Villa’s managing director of football, Monchi, is set to leave his role at the club. Although the publication didn’t specify when this would happen it seems as though the 57-year-old director will call it quits after a little over two years at Villa Park. And having joined the club alongside Emery and worked side by side with the Spanish manager, it certainly seems as though the English giants have accepted that results on and off the pitch haven’t been up to scratch. So how well have Villa performed in the transfer market and on the pitch since Monchi joined the club?
Has Aston Villa’s squad gotten better under Monchi?
Perhaps the most important metric to gauge the success of any director of football is the strength of their club’s squad. And when it comes to Villa, that’s a tricky question to answer. We’ll get to the club’s performances on the pitch in a moment, but in terms of raw numbers Villa’s squad market value stands at €547 million, which is ninth highest in the Premier League. However, when we compare that to when Monchi first arrived at the club, we find that the Villa Park team has only increased in market value by around €64m. And, as the table above shows, no less than 12 clubs have seen their squad market value increase more in that time period. In some cases it’s marginal differences, but Villa fans won’t be too happy to see the likes of Newcastle, Nottingham Forest and Tottenham notably outperforming them in this metric since Monchi started calling the shots at Villa Park.
How much money have Villa spent under Monchi?
The main reason behind Villa’s lack of notable growth in the squad’s overall market value could be put down to the club’s activity in the transfer market. When we rank every English club by money spent on new players since Monchi arrived at the club, Villa rank 13th with €356.2m spent on new players. That isn’t particularly impressive and actually puts them behind the likes of West Ham (€433m), Bournemouth (€403m) and Wolves (€358m). But when we take a look at their net spend (i.e transfer spend minus transfer profits) since Monchi arrived at the club, their outlay in the transfer market comes in at a paltry net spend of just €10.7m. That, unsurprisingly, is well off most of the Premier League, with Villa ranking 23rd behind Stoke City and Charlton Athletic in terms of their outgoings in the transfer market.
Why Villa have spent so little in the transfer market could be down to the club’s bulging wage bill. According to the BBC, the club’s latest financial results in 2024 pointed to a wage bill that stood at 91% of the club’s total revenue. In stark contrast, Tottenham’s stood at just 45%, while Manchester United and Arsenal’s stood at around 51%. As such, it seems as though Villa poured more of their money into paying bigger wages to the players they had, rather than spending more money to sign new ones in the transfer market. And while that may not seem like a smart move, their performances on the pitch do perhaps suggest otherwise.
Have Aston Villa improved on the pitch under Monchi?
With all the off-the-field numbers taken into consideration, we can now take a look at Villa’s performances on the pitch and here we can certainly see some good news for Monchi. While the club may have the ninth most valuable squad in the Premier League and a net spend closer to most Championship clubs in the last two seasons, Villa have won 315 points in 213 games since the Spaniard arrived at Villa Park in 2023. That, as the table above shows, is the eighth best return in the English top flight in that period of time, just one point off Newcastle and above the likes of Brighton and West Ham.
While that may not seem terribly exciting to most Villa fans, it’s worth bearing in mind that they are still within touching distance to the likes of Tottenham (336 points) and Man Utd (351), despite spending considerably less than them in the transfer market and having a squad with a far smaller market values. Whether this is down to Emery’s own talent as a manager and the players that he can rely upon each and every week is certainly up for debate, but based on the quality of their squad and the money spent in the transfer window, few could doubt that Emery and Monchi have probably done a reasonable job of keeping Villa in the top half of the table for the last two seasons. Even if this current league campaign hasn’t started as well as expected.
