Aston Villa finally gets its first win, but its sorry season continues

"It's not enough."

When Aston Villa beat Bologna 1-0 to open its Europa League campaign and rev up its 2025-26 season, that was coach Unai Emery's honest reaction. The Spaniard, thought of as one of the Premier League's finest coaches for his work building Villa into a European-caliber side, wasn't just being self-deprecating. His Villa team might have won the match, but that was the first match it had won all season after seven attempts in three different competitions.

It's been a spectacular comedown for Emery and Villa, who made it all the way to the Champions League quarterfinals last season on the back of their stellar performances.

But what happened? What drove Villa from near the top to the relegation zone in one season flat? And can anything be done to stop the skid?

Financial fair play violations

Much of the modern Premier League is shaped by Financial Fair Play (FFP), the new system through which club spending is governed. FFP is a complex topic and one that vexes its critics. On one hand, financial regulation in the Premier League is much needed; on the other, the punishments for breaking FFP are frustratingly inconsistent. 

In the summer of 2025, Aston Villa earned a significant FFP punishment — a fine of around 26 million Euros — for its failure to comply with a metric known as Squad Cost Ratio (SCR) in the previous season. SCR states that Premier League clubs cannot spend more than a specific percentage of their overall costs on player wages and transfer fees; in 2024-25, the year Villa fell out of line, that percentage was capped at 80%. In 2025-26, however, it's expected to drop all the way down to 70%.

Saddled with an eight-figure fine and stuck with a lineup of expensive players, Villa found itself forced to sell in order to comply with future FFP roles. The market, though, wasn't as interested in Villa's players as it hoped. Goalkeeper Emi Martinez had a deal to Manchester United fall through while several Premier League clubs failed to move for striker Ollie Watkins. In the end, Villa was forced to sell Jacob Ramsey, one of its beloved young homegrown midfielders, because it couldn't move its older, more costly players in time. The result? Villa barely signed anyone in the summer transfer window, and its lineup quickly became the oldest one in the Premier League.

Front-office turmoil

Who was responsible for Villa's deals — both the expensive ones that landed it in FFP trouble and the failed ones that kept it there? While coach Emery is quick to take the blame, the answer is his longtime collaborator Monchi. Monchi served as Villa's director of football for two seasons under Emery and led the team's player transfer efforts.

Emery and Monchi's relationship goes way back. The two worked together successfully at Sevilla in Spain and built a world-class player program. But the arrival of FFP regulations in England meant that neither Monchi nor Emery could replicate their success at Villa. Strong players arrived and departed, yes — Marco Asensio and Jhon Duran come to mind — but the core of the team never really changed under their leadership. When Villa lined up to face Sunderland in the Premier League this season, nine of its 11 starting players had been with Villa since before Emery and Monchi arrived.